Through The Wrong Side of The Looking Glass
by Tylluan
Summary: In this story, Jack once again jumps dimensions in his search to find Ianto but finds himself in an unexpected place that turns his whole life upside down in the process of his search to find Ianto. Can he thread the minefield of this reality safely?
1. Chapter 1

Jack stumbled as he made his way through the portal, this time landing on pavement as he reached out to stop himself from tumbling forward. The ground was wet under his hands and as he looked up, he felt the fine drizzle that signified winter in Wales on his face.

"Lovely," he muttered as he stood up and looked around. The scene around him was very familiar. He was standing on the Plass, the railing to the Bay behind him as he looked towards the Millennium Centre. People were looking at him curiously, but no one stopped to speak with him. He smiled wryly. No one ever wanted to help someone else if they looked like they were in need. He frowned. Had he been brought back to his reality? It certainly looked like he had.

He casually walked over to the invisible lift and stood on it. Looking around, he could see that people were passing by, but no one was looking at him. Shrugging, he flipped open the cover on his wrist strap and hit a button. He felt the faint rumble that signified the lift had been activated and a moment later found himself sinking below street level.

A shriek came from somewhere to his left and he glanced over to see the flash of a wingtip off to the side. Looking down, the Hub looked the same as usual. Actually, it looked the same as it did before it had been blown up by the government. He frowned thoughtfully. If he was back in his own timeline then he had better be careful since it was obvious that he was not in what should have been his present. Silently he cursed himself for not thinking and just assuming he knew when he was. It seemed like no one was about, which was a good thing. Perhaps he could minimize the damage of crossing his own timeline.

Jack jumped off the concrete platform before it had fully settled. He looked about the space to see if he could pinpoint it to his version of Earth or whether he was in another timeline entirely. The sound of the machinery humming around him was actually comforting to him as he wandered about the space and poked around. From the looks of things the team had gone out on a call. The computer screen at what was what he thought of as Tosh's station showed a map of Cardiff with a glowing mark. He peered closer and saw that the team wasn't too far away. In fact, the tracker for the SUV was off on the edge of the original mark. Sitting down in the stool, he debated whether he should go out and join them, but didn't know if he was there with the team or not. He poked around trying to bring up the CCTV, but the cameras were down. Looking down on the desk, he saw that someone had scrawled EMP on a piece of paper and knew that an electro-magnetic pulse had taken out the local equipment. He picked up the signal of the SUV and set it to send a signal to his vortex manipulator when the team was heading back, so he could get an idea of what was going on before they walked through the door. Then he sat back and just started at the screen for a long moment as he became lost in thought.

Jack sighed. He could use a coffee right now and he spun around towards the kitchen and looked longingly at the coffee area. He frowned thoughtfully. Something wasn't right. Pushing himself up from the stool, he walked over to the kitchen area. What was sitting on the counter was an ordinary coffeemaker. There was no sign of the elaborate machine that Ianto had purchased to make coffee for them. Shrugging, he pulled the pot off the burner and looked down at it. He wrinkled his nose. It had been sitting a while. Dumping it in the sink, he set about making a fresh pot. If the team were out dealing with the rift, he probably had some time before they came back. Turning the pot on to brew, he went back to poking around. He knew he definitely wasn't in his own timeline, even before Ianto came to work for Torchwood. The place had subtle differences, but they were enough to signify he wasn't back in the Hub he was used to.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," he murmured to himself as he rifled through what he thought of as Owen's station. Interestingly enough, that seemed to be the same as he had remembered. Take out cups were littered around the space with some sort of alien plant growing out of the cover of one of the cups that was leaning precariously off to one side. Jack frowned thoughtfully. Now was that deliberate, or had something crawled in there and taken up residence? He shrugged and continued looking for clues.

He turned and stopped abruptly as he came face to face with a container he hadn't seen for some time. Water bubbled gently in the tank, preserving a human hand. He saluted it sharply and gave it a nod. "Doctor," he said in acknowledgement before turning away. He headed to the area of his office.

When he got the door and stepped through he stopped abruptly. It wasn't his office anymore. There was someone else's coat on the stand off to one side and the area looked neat as a pin. It definitely wasn't how he would normally leave it, so he began to wonder if he was even in this reality of Torchwood. He frowned as he stepped through the doorway and went over to sit down in the chair. There was only one way to find out, he thought to himself as he pulled the keyboard closer to him and angled the monitor for better viewing. He decided to log into the system.

When it accepted his login, he sat back for a moment and just watched as the system brought up email, chat, his log and other windows he normally had opened. The chair squeaked in protest as he leaned back and he cupped his hands behind his neck and just waited for the system to completely boot up before he began to sift through the information. He glanced around the room, seeing that while it still had some of his pet projects tucked away on shelves and on the counters, there was something missing about the space. He tried to put his finger on what the difference was, but couldn't seem to do it. Shaking his head, he leaned forward to start reading and catching up.

According to the logs, he was in this reality, but his last log entry had been seven months prior to the current date. He was just about to start checking who the staff members were and who was in charge now when the alarms went off and he could hear the cog wheel door rolling back. He glared at his wristband. It hadn't warned him that the team was coming back. Sighing, he debated whether he should go out and greet his team or to wait and let them find him. A moment later he noticed his fingers were drumming against the desktop. He never was one for waiting so he got up and went to the door to see who was there.

Shoulder length black hair and a petite figure told him instantly who it was. He felt a pang as he watched a very familiar person walk around the computer consoles to a desk. Dropping her handbag on the top, she pulled the stool up and sat down. She typed something into the keyboard and he watched as she fitted the com to her ear. Tapping something, she began to speak and he found himself hanging back, just wanting to watch her for a bit.

"All right, I'm back. Sorry for the delay," she said, her voice soft but audible where he stood. "Let me just log into the system and tell you where they are now." Her hands flew across the keyboard and Jack watched as she pulled up windows of information. "Got them. The cameras are still down but I'm looking to reboot them again. Maybe this time it will work and I can see what they look like. In the meantime, they're about a half mile through the industrial estate on your left. Keep on going in the direction you're headed and you'll find them hiding behind some construction material. What? No of course not. Why do you ask?" Jack pulled back a bit as the young Japanese woman glanced about the space. "No one's here at all. I don't know what you saw on the grid, but no one's here. Okay, the cameras are coming back on line. Let me see if I can pinpoint them now."

Jack watched from the shadows of his office as Toshiko Sato efficiently led the field team to the artifact's location. He watched with pride as she assisted in the capture of some alien who was hording a potentially dangerous weapon. Once again Torchwood efficiently and quietly saved the city without anyone being the wiser. Looking at the woman who had been one of his protégées, he smiled. How anyone could lock away such brilliance was beyond him. He sighed, thinking of petty UNIT bureaucrats and their inability to think outside of the box. His thoughts were interrupted by the distinctive sound of a gun being cocked and he looked up to see that Tosh had stopped what she had been doing and had taken a gun out of her handbag. It was pointed in his direction. She must have heard him behind her.

"Hello, Toshiko," he said as he came out from the shadows of the office. Tosh's eyes grew wide as she took in the man before her. "It's been a while." He could hear the tinny sound of someone speaking into her earpiece, but it was obvious that she wasn't listening.

"Jack? Is that really you?" She asked, her voice trembling.

"Yeah, it's me," he said. He watched as she lowered the gun. Putting it on the desk, she ran to him and he scooped her up in his arms. "Hi," he said with a laugh, gratified with her response as she hugged him hard. "Miss me?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," she said in his ear as she hugged him tight. "Where have you been?"

"All over the place," he said, giving the safest answer he could as he set her back down on her feet. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"So are you!" She said with a delighted laugh. She stared up into his face. "What happened? You look different."

"Do I?" He asked, not wanting to give any details which might screw up whatever timeline this reality was in. "Don't feel any different. And the old place feels the same." Tosh looked around the Hub, trying to see it with his eyes and shrugged. "At least it does right now. How's everyone doing?"

"You'll find out soon enough," she said with an impish smile. "They're on their way back now."

"You better let them know you're okay, since you didn't respond when they asked," Jack pointed out. Tosh nodded and quickly reactivated her com to let the team know that she was all right and she had a surprise for them when they got back. At that moment his vortex manipulator beeped, signifying that the SUV was coming within range. He felt a stir of anticipation as he wondered who would be coming to greet him and what their reaction would be. Would it be the same team he knew, or would the make up in this universe be different? He wasn't sure and the anticipation of surprise was something he hadn't felt in a long time. "Hey, I made coffee. Want a cup?"

"Would I ever," Tosh said with a smile. Together they walked over to the kitchen area and Jack poured two mugs. Clinking them together in a toast, they drank the coffee. Tosh made a face after taking a sip.

"Oh, still not good at that, are you?" She said with a wrinkle of her nose. "Let me make a fresh pot or else you'll have it thrown back in your face!"

"Hey, it isn't that bad!" Jack protested. "Is it?" She just gave him a look as she dumped the pot down the drain. He hadn't thought it was that bad, but then nothing could ever be as good as Ianto would have made it. He leaned against the counter as he watched her work.

"You're smiling," she noted as she glanced at him as she repacked the filter and set the coffee to brew. "Happy to be back?"

"Yeah, I am," he replied. In a way no matter who was on this team, he felt happy to be able to see her again. To perhaps say what he hadn't been able to say in the past. Hopefully without screwing up the timelines at all. "I've really missed you."

"We've missed you," she said. She seemed on the verge of saying something else but held back. Jack wondered what it was she had been about to say, but shrugged it off. He'd find out soon enough. "Are you here to stay this time?"

"Yeah, well, about that…" he started saying when the alarms went off again, signifying the door was opening again. The rest of the team had arrived. Toshiko turned around and looked.

"They're here," she said with a smile and headed out of the little alcove to where the team was standing. He took a deep breath and followed Tosh out in the main area. After about ten steps he stopped, shocked by what he saw.

Standing in front of him was the Torchwood team from this reality. At the head was a tall woman with dark curly hair. "Suzie," he breathed, not having expected to see her. Behind her someone cursed and he could see Owen pushing past her to stare at him. He looked the same as always, as did Suzie. What he wasn't expecting was the person in the suit behind Suzie. Before he could say anything the woman who apparently was the new head of Torchwood marched forward and stood nose to nose with him.

"The mighty Captain Jack Harkness has decided to return," she said with a sneer as she stared into his eyes. "What, get bored shagging whatever floozy you ran off with? Or did you decide that you can just waltz in here and pick up where you left off?" She was practically spitting, she was that mad. He opened his mouth to say something but she kept on going, not allowing him a word in edgewise. "Don't try to give me some lame arse excuse, Jack, because I'm not going to accept it. You ran off on us! Left us in the middle of a job! What the hell were you thinking?"

"Suzie," Jack began but she kept on going.

"No! I'm not going to let you sweet talk me! You've done it too many times before, and frankly, I'm done with you. Get the hell out!" She turned and stalked away, her arms crossed over her chest. Owen was looking from her and back to Jack as he tried to figure out what to say. Tosh was looking down, not wanting to witness the confrontation.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. He really didn't know what to say. Didn't know what had happened. He still hadn't read the logs, only the date entries. So he didn't know what was going on and he knew that if something came up at the spur of the moment, he wouldn't have bothered to leave a note. He glanced over to the hand bubbling away in its protective container off to the side. It wasn't the Doctor, because the hand was still here. So he wasn't sure what happened in this timeline to make himself disappear for over seven months.

Owen reached out to touch Suzie's shoulder and she shrugged him off. "I'm going out for some air," she muttered. Owen took a step to follow her but stopped when she ran out the door. He sighed and then turned back to his boss.

"Well, did you expect anything else, Jack?"

"I guess not," Jack responded. "How have you all been?" His glance moved from Owen to the man standing behind him. The man in the suit hadn't moved at all during the whole confrontation with Suzie. He was still trying to reconcile that face as part of the team. Owen followed his gaze before looking back at Jack.

"We've done okay without you, if that's what you want to know. Suzie's taken on the lead and she's done a damned fine job of it," Owen said. "Of course, I'm second, with Tosh and Andy here as support. We've finally gotten him out the Hub and he's a real member of the team now."

"Yeah?" Jack asked, still puzzling how Andy Davidson had become part of Torchwood and not Gwen. "Good for you, Andy." The other man smiled at him tentatively. Jack thought he looked so young and so out of place standing there. "Good for all of you. Just what I would have hoped."

"So, are you back to stay?" Owen asked, getting to the point. Jack sighed and shorter man took on a sour expression. "Then why come back at all? Are you just trying to screw with our heads?"

"It's complicated," Jack said. Owen turned away, shaking his head in disgust.

"Yeah, I'll just bet it is. Look, I'm out of here. Off to find Suzie and see if I can calm her down a bit," he muttered as he left through the open doorway and took the lift upstairs. Tosh gave him a sympathetic look before turning back towards her console. There was work to do. Jack watched as Andy went over to the sofa and started picking up the abandoned pizza boxes that were there. It was so reminiscent of something that Ianto would have done that it almost physically hurt to watch. He turned away and walked back to his office. Sitting back down in the chair, he decided he needed to do some homework. Find out what had happened to Ianto. It also bothered him that Gwen wasn't part of the team. He couldn't imagine a Torchwood without her now. To find that she wasn't in this reality was something that had thrown him more than seeing Andy working with the team. He rested his forehead on his hand and sighed. The whole thing was giving him a headache.


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of something being placed on the desk made Jack look up. Andy stood next to him and had just placed a mug of coffee before him. Jack had a wild moment where he wondered if in this reality Andy had completely replaced Ianto and he immediately rejected it. No. That wasn't possible. He stared at the mug for a long moment as he thought.

"Thank you," he said in a quiet tone, not wanting to look up and meet the other man's eyes. He really didn't want to hurt him. He didn't want to hurt any of them.

"You look tired," Andy said in a quiet tone. Jack sighed and nodded. "Look, I don't mean to pry, but… if you want to talk, I'm here to listen, yeah?"

Jack smiled a wistful smile. "Yeah, thanks. But right now… I'm sorry, Andy. I just can't." Silence met his comment and a moment later he almost jumped when he felt hands massaging his shoulders. He closed his eyes, thinking his worst fears were being realized. When he didn't react, the hands were withdrawn after a moment. "I'm sorry," he almost whispered.

"Yeah, me too," Andy responded. Jack closed his eyes at the despondent note in his voice and he looked down at his desk as the other man walked past him and out the door. Jack didn't move for the longest time. He sat frozen in his chair and just listened to the sounds outside his office. The low murmuring of voices as Toshiko and Andy spoke in quiet tones. The sound of the door alarm going off as Owen returned. The lack of Suzie's voice in the mix. It all felt so wrong to him.

After a long moment of not thinking, he opened his eyes again. Looking off to the side, he picked up his favorite mug and took a sip. Damn. It was pretty damn good, he thought to himself. Putting it down, he dragged the keyboard closer and started a search. After the window opened, he typed in "Jones, Ianto," his date of birth and hit the enter key. Finding Ianto was his first priority, and then he'd check and see what happened to Gwen.

"So?" Tosh asked Andy after Owen had gone off to the autopsy room after reporting to them his encounter with Suzie. She had been so mad she had been incoherent. He decided to let her be, since it was obvious she needed time on her own. Having nothing else to do, he came back to the Hub while she went home to cool off. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Andy muttered with a confused look on his face. "He's Jack… but something's different. I can't put my finger on it. But something has changed." She gave him a concerned look.

"You think it isn't him? That it might be some alien or something masquerading as him?" She asked. She had been positive it was him, but in the face of Andy's reaction, she began to doubt herself. He shook his head.

"No, it's him all right. No one could imitate that scent," he said. She nodded. That much was true. "I'm not sure what it is, but he's different. He's not the same Jack who left here without telling us where he was going. Something happened. He's changed." She sighed as she listened.

"Well, if he won't speak to you, who is he going to tell?" She asked herself out loud. Andy just shrugged and picked at a hang nail. Seeing Jack had brought back all the hurt and longing that he had shelved away into a corner of his heart as the months had drawn on. He couldn't meet her eyes because he knew she would see everything he was feeling if she looked into them. "Well, give him some time. I'm sure once he gets used to being back that he'll open up."

"Yeah, I guess," the young man said despondently. "Though what if he doesn't stay?" Tosh looked up to see the pain in Andy's face at that thought. "I tried to move past him. I tried to just let him go. But then he walks back in and all I can think of is him, Tosh. Only him."

"I'm sorry, sweetie," she said with a gentle smile. "I know what he's like. It's hard to forget him and move on, isn't it?" Andy nodded glumly. "Just take it one day at a time and see what happens. And if you need to talk, I'm always here to listen, okay?"

"Yeah," he said. He looked back in the direction of Jack's office. He could see the other man staring intently at his computer screen. "Now that he's back it almost feels like he's never been gone at all. I just wish he'd talk to me. Let me know where we are. I think that's the worst part. The not knowing."

"Give him time. He's only been back a couple of hours from wherever he's been. And who knows what he ran into? We'll work it out," she assured him. He nodded before letting out another deep sigh.

"I'm going topside for a bit. Think I need a bit of air," he said. She watched as he turned and headed through the door, taking the stairs rather than the lift. After he was out of sight she turned and looked at Jack. He had his chin in his hand as he stared at the display in front of him. She wanted to go talk to him but figured he probably needed some space, too. She went back to what she was doing, and got her report ready for Suzie. Well, for Jack now, she thought to herself. She wondered when Suzie was going to come back and figured it was after she spent some time blowing off her temper. Suzie was like that. She put it out of her mind as she got back to work.

Jack stared at the screen, shocked by what he had found out. In this universe, Ianto Jones was effectively a criminal. He was lost in reading a rap sheet that went on for several pages when someone cleared their throat to get his attention. He blinked as he looked up at Owen who was standing in the doorway.

"Sorry, but I just wanted to let you know we're leaving," Owen said. He felt bad about leaving Jack on his own on what seemed to be his first night back, but on the other hand he needed to get home to Suzie. And she really wasn't going to be happy if he invited their erstwhile boss home for dinner.

"Okay," Jack said. Owen stared at him for a moment before giving him a nod.

"Right then. See you in the morning, unless the rift blows up overnight," he said. He shrugged his jacket on and left, taking Tosh with him. Jack stared out into the empty Hub for a long moment. He sat back in his chair and stretched. Was Andy still here? And if he was, would he want something that Jack wasn't prepared to give him? Jack opened up the CCTV cameras within the Hub and started hunting around. After looking in the usual spots that Ianto had always been found lurking, he concluded that Andy had left as well. At least he had hoped he had. He returned to the police records and tried to see if there was a known address for Ianto, but stopped looking after finding a notation from a parole officer that there was no permanent address for Mr. Jones. Jack sighed. This wasn't going to be easy.

He turned to the logs that his other self had kept and started perusing them. They held the usual type of entries that he would have made, and in fact several key events from his own past had occurred here as well. But in areas where he had mentioned Ianto, Andy's name appeared instead. He stared at the monitor, his brow furrowed. This was going to be impossible. He didn't want to hurt the young man, and didn't want to mess up whatever was going on in this timeline, but at the same time he didn't want to have any kind of personal interaction with him. He thought about it for a long moment. Just how did Andrew Davidson become part of Torchwood? With that thought uppermost in his mind, he pulled up the employee records and started to read.

Time passed as he looked through each of the records, trying to get an idea as to what was going on and how he was going to have to interact with each of the members. When his head started to hurt he abandoned what he was doing and decided to look around the Hub. He pushed back from his desk.

The first order of business would be to check out his sleeping area. He might have left other things there that wouldn't necessarily be in the computer system. Jack stood up and went over to the hatch. Lifting it up, he climbed down the ladder and looked around. It looked like it normally did, though the bed was neatly made. He smiled wryly at that before going through his locker. He didn't find anything of interest there, nor in the small nightstand he had by the bed. After looking around the rest of the space he gave that up as hopeless and went back to the main area. Tosh had left a program running on her console, so he kept away from there. He did poke around Suzie's work area. Even though it looked like she had taken over his office for the managerial side of the business, she obviously couldn't keep away from tinkering on her pet projects. He grinned to himself. "Good for you, Suzie," he murmured. "Be strong here. Don't lose yourself."

From Suzie's area he went to Owen's, pulling up recent medical events that were in the logs and reading what had been going on. He nodded to himself before turning away and going down into the archives. Jack wandered around for hours, just getting familiar with this different place he was in. He needed to reconcile himself to this new place so he could seem at ease in it. As he wandered, his mind was still thinking about Andy and Ianto. According to the records, it was Andy who had spied on them the night they had worked with the life knife and not Gwen. Because Suzie didn't see him as much of a threat, she wasn't pushed the way she had been in his own reality. Andy also hadn't worked for Torchwood Tower. Jack found that interesting. From what he could gather, the very fact that Ianto hadn't gone to London and had stayed in Cardiff had changed that timeline significantly. He shook his head and smiled to himself as he thought about how a single decision could change the course of one's history.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't hear the sound of someone else about until he turned a corner and walked into Andy. He stumbled and Andy put out his hands to steady him. Jack looked up into Andy's eyes and froze at the expression he found on the other man's face. He quickly looked away, not wanting to acknowledge the look of hunger in the other man's eyes.

Andy saw Jack flinch and he quickly released the other man. He stared at Jack, trying to figure out what had happened. There was a haunted look to the other man that he had never seen before and he wondered what had happened to Jack while he was gone that made him look like that. "Jack," he finally said.

"Andy," Jack said. He held himself in place and turned back to look Andy in the eye. He knew he couldn't avoid the man forever so he might as well come to an understanding while everyone else was gone. "I didn't realize you were still here."

"I was topside for a bit," Andy said. He relaxed a little when he saw that Jack was responding to him. "I didn't realize you were down here." Actually, he did know that because he had searched to the CCTV to find him, but he didn't tell his boss that. He wanted answers. Not that Jack was likely to give them if he didn't feel like it, but Andy felt he couldn't stay in limbo until they talked.

"I needed to walk a bit," Jack said. He looked around the empty corridor, but there was nothing else to focus on other than the man in front of him. "It's… um… been a while."

"Yeah, it has," Andy replied. "Want to talk about it?" He knew as soon as he asked the question that Jack wouldn't want to talk about whatever it was that had happened to him. He silently cursed himself for pushing Jack, but he found he couldn't help himself. There had been so much between them that he couldn't just step back now that Jack was back.

"I can't," Jack said. He looked away, not wanting the other man to see whatever it was in his eyes that was obviously making Andy concerned. "I'm sorry, Andy. It's just…" He sighed, unable to continue. He tried to avoid twitching when he felt a hand on his shoulder. While he craved someone's touch right now, this wasn't the person he wanted to be touching him. In looking away he had angled his whole body away from the other man. He knew that told Andy something just in his physical reactions that he couldn't control.

"I know," Andy said in a low voice. Jack closed his eyes as Andy wrapped his arms around him and hugged him from behind. "I can see it in your eyes. You don't have to talk about it. At least, not until you're ready. But if you do, I'll be here to listen, yeah?"

Jack stayed still, not wanting to give Andy the wrong impression. If he pulled away, it would be a rejection of whatever relationship the Jack from this time and Andy had. If he leaned into the embrace, it would be a tacit request for more. He really craved being held at the moment, but these weren't the arms he was looking for. He remained where he was, unable to respond. Andy stood there for a long moment before he let him go.

"That bad, huh?" He asked softly. Jack closed his eyes briefly in pain, regretting the fact that his indecision had been an answer in itself. "Was it something I did?"

"No," Jack said with a shake of his head. "It's not you. It's me." He sighed. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Again he felt the touch of Andy's hand on his shoulder, this time urging him to turn around. He complied, but didn't look up at the other man. When Andy carded his fingers through his hair, Jack closed his eyes completely. Andy's touch was almost hauntingly familiar, as it was a gesture that Ianto used to do in a past that seemed like several lifetimes ago. With his eyes closed, it almost felt like… No. It wasn't Ianto. It was the touch of an altogether different man. A man who expected to have a relationship with the Jack from this time. One he wasn't prepared to give. Jack stifled a sigh and after a moment, Andy moved his hand down to rub the back of Jack's neck.

"Let me in, please," he begged softly. Jack could only shake his head. He couldn't explain anything to the man before him. "Jack…"


	3. Chapter 3

"I can't," Jack whispered. A moment later he felt lips brush against his own. The difference here was far more pronounced and his heart ached with what he had to do. He didn't want to hurt this man. "Please, Andy. I need some time."

"I'm sorry," Andy said in a low voice. "I shouldn't be pushing you like this." He pulled back, though his hands still were caressing Jack as he did so. He never could keep his hands to himself where Jack was concerned. "But we always talked best when we said nothing at all, didn't we?"

Jack smiled wryly. That echoed so well his relationship with a completely different man. He opened his eyes and looked into the gaze of a man who loved another version of him in this universe. He reached out and touched Andy's cheek. "I am so sorry, Andy. But a lot's gone on that I can't even begin to explain." Andy leaned into his touch and he could see the naked longing in the other man's eyes.

"I don't need explanations, Jack," Andy said, deciding to say what he felt. He thought that if he didn't and he lost Jack for some reason that he would never forgive himself. "I just need you." He knew he was pushing it, but he felt that Jack was close to giving in. If he just pushed gently, maybe they could have the physical side and the rest would follow. He was willing to take any crumb that Jack was willing to give him at the moment. "I really, really need you, Jack," he said in a raw tone.

Jack closed his eyes again. This was not the way he wanted this to go. He felt like if he pushed Andy away right now that he'd be hurting the young man far more than he had intended. "Andy…"

"Please let me in, Jack," Andy pleaded with his heart on his sleeve. He knew it probably looked bad, but he felt Jack was slipping away and he couldn't stand the thought of losing him. Not like this. Not without a fight. He wrapped his arms around Jack and pulled him in for another kiss. "Don't do this to me. I can't take it," he whispered against the other man's lips.

Jack just let him do it. He couldn't push away the other man, not when he heard that raw need and the pain of rejection in Andy's voice. He held the other man close, wanting with all of his heart for him to be someone else. Andy clung to him, breathing in his scent, beginning to feel like he was finally getting through to him.

"Forget whatever it is that is bothering you. Forget what happened the last seven months you were gone," Andy whispered in his ear. "Forget everything and just let me hold you."

Jack couldn't say anything past the lump in his throat. He couldn't do this to the other man, but if he didn't, he was going to have to tell him something. The truth, perhaps. He spent a wild moment considering that. Would Andy believe him if he told him that he wasn't his Jack? Another part of him wondered if it would be so bad to just give in and love this man the way he wanted to be loved. The physical side had always been easy for him. It wasn't that he wasn't picky, he was just able to see something desirable in anyone, no matter what they looked like.

Andy wrapped himself around Jack and decided that this would be enough for the moment. He felt the tightness in Jack's shoulders loosen a bit as they hugged one another. He buried his face in Jack's neck and just breathed his scent in. Reacquainting himself with how Jack smelled. How he felt. The curve of his back under his hands. The press of their bodies against one another. Not demanding anything, just being there. He let out a sigh, feeling he was home again.

Jack opened his eyes, seeing the curly lighter colored hair where he would have expected to see dark. Andy was also taller than Ianto and a little more slightly built. He wondered if it would be so bad to give this man what he wanted. The more realistic part of him knew that if he did, at some point he'd hurt him if he found Ianto here, and it was a man who would want to go with him back to his reality. There would also be the problem of the other Jack coming back at some point as well. He made a note to himself to set a warning for the appearance of another vortex manipulator. It had a unique signal and would be the best way of tracking his other universe self.

"Thank you," Andy said quietly, just enjoying the feel of Jack holding him again. There was a point where he thought he'd never feel this again, so to have Jack wrap his arms around him filled a deep seated need.

"I'm so sorry," Jack said softly. He would never want to hurt any of his team, no matter what reality he was in. He wondered where his other self had gone. Would it be so bad to fill in for this other Jack, at least for a little while? There was a part of him who craved for the personal touch of another person. And here was a man who was offering just that. He pulled back and looked down at Andy's face. He was moved by the expression he saw there.

Andy had his eyes closed, content just to be in Jack's arms. He didn't need anything else at the moment. He felt Jack pull back slightly, but kept his head against the other man's shoulder. He felt Jack staring at him and he held his breath, afraid to open his eyes and see his expression. A moment later he felt lips brush against his forehead and he exhaled softly.

"So what now?" He finally asked when the silence stretched out and he couldn't hold back any longer.

"What do you say," Jack began, "to going to bed? To sleep - I'm..." he searched for the words, wanting to be honest with this young man. "I'm not sure what else I'm up for at the moment."

Andy nodded his head. "That's fine with me. I just want to be with you, Jack. Let's go to bed." He pulled back and smiled. "I've got the spare room all fixed up, so it would be a shame to let it go to waste."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Jack asked. Inwardly he was relieved that they wouldn't be going down to his bunker. That place held too many memories with a far different man. "Let's go, then." Andy pulled out of his embrace and he saw that just that simple suggestion had made a world of difference in the other man's demeanor. Andy tugged on his hand and led him back through the corridors to one of the older storage rooms. It didn't have much - just a bed on a frame and some old furniture from the lower archives that Andy had no doubt resurrected and brought up to the room. It didn't have much in way of comforts, but it was better than an Army cot, Jack reflected. He smiled encouragingly at the former police officer as they sat down on the bed.

Andy was feeling very nervous, but Jack's matter of fact response to disrobing made him relax once they were inside. He had thought about this moment for months. Had wondered what would happen. Had debated about whether he should just give Jack the cold shoulder for running out on him. Or whether he should berate him for doing so. In the end, he found he could do neither, and that his heart had just accepted that he was back with no questions asked. He watched as Jack removed his boots and pulled his braces off of his shoulders. He removed his suit jacket and tie, placing them over the back of the chair. He smiled to himself. There was a point where had someone told him that he would enjoy wearing a suit, he would have laughed at them. In the years before Torchwood, he was strictly a jeans and trainers sort of guy unless he was working. Then it was the uniform. He thought back to all the times Jack Harkness had teased him, telling him how much he loved a man in a uniform, and how sexy he found form fitting suits. And so he had found himself out at the menswear store looking for clothing that would entice Jack further. He saw what kind of fetish the other man had from his comments and had first started doing it to please him. Then he began to enjoy it.

Jack lay back on the bed, still wearing his trousers and vest. Andy frowned when he looked at him sprawled on the bed.

"Jack, you're going to ruin your clothes if you think you're going to sleep like that," he said. "Take them off."

Jack grinned. "Oh, I like a man who is forceful," he teased, momentarily forgetting that he had wanted to keep a couple of layers of proprietary between them when they went to bed. Also, he hadn't removed the braces from the waistband of his trousers and already the buckles were digging into his rear end. "Oh, okay." He got back up and shucked himself down to his boxers. Andy did the same and got into the bed. Jack stared at him for a long moment. He looked so pale and vulnerable. Making a decision, he pressed a button on his vortex manipulator and the lights blinked off. He made his way to the other side of the bed and crawled in. He could hear the slight breathing from Andy and he could feel the nervous tension in the other man's body as he brushed against it. He let out a breath before reaching over and pulling Andy over onto his side. "Come here," he said softly.

Andy rolled over and found himself resting his head in the hollow of Jack's shoulder. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He carefully placed his arm across Jack's chest, mindful that he didn't want to see to be asking for something more than had been offered.

"So tell me what's been going on the last 7 months," Jack asked him. He could still feel the tension in Andy's muscles and sought to find something that would make him relax.

"The usual," Andy said. He had his eyes closed since Jack had turned the lights off anyhow. Jack was warm and he snuggled closer since there was a chill in the air down here in the basement level. He felt Jack pull the duvet up around his shoulders. "No major invasions, thankfully. Just the usual stuff - weevils, black market artifacts and kids trying to sell them on eBay sort of thing. It's been relatively quiet, considering. A good thing, that."

"Yeah," Jack responded, smiling into the dark as Andy went on about the petty bureaucrats who had been causing problems as well as the influx of paperwork from the Crown, UNIT and the PM that had built up over time. In some ways, nothing had changed at all. And he was relieved to think that the team could handle things well enough on their own without him around. That made him feel better about things.

Eventually Andy wound down. He longed to ask Jack about what had happened, but he wasn't going to push it. He knew Jack was still awake because he was still running his fingers up and down his arm. The gesture was strangely soothing, and not something Jack had been prone to do prior to his disappearance. He finally let down that last barrier he had been holding up, and he decided to just let things be this evening. Their conversation had gone from talk about what was going on to how each member of the team was faring. Several times Andy felt like Jack was on the verge of saying something, but then backed off from whatever it was. Almost like he was going to say another name or refer to something else. While Andy found it curious, it wasn't anything that he could specifically point out. More like a feeling that Jack was editing himself for some reason.

For Jack, he was finding that this young man was a more than capable member of the Torchwood team. Funny, he never would have thought that would happen, no matter what reality he was in. The Andy he knew back in his own timeline just hadn't seemed the sort, though Gwen had told him a couple of times that he had been eager to join up. Her personal take was that he wanted to be closer to her, and for the mystery of what they did.

"Still keeping in touch with your old team at the station?" Jack asked. Andy said that he still went out occasionally for a drink or two, but that the team had been too busy to really have a lot of downtime in recent months.

"Sorry about that," Jack apologized. Andy waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn't, knew that he wasn't going to get an explanation. "Still see your ex-partner?"

"Gwen?" Andy asked. Jack murmured an assent. "Yeah, she's still doing the usual, breaking up pub fights, chasing down delinquents, the usual sort of thing." Andy was quiet for a long moment. "She still hates you, you know."

"Really?" Jack asked in surprise. He shifted in the bed, feeling a little uncomfortable at the idea of a universe where Gwen Cooper hated him.

"Well, we were engaged at one point. Once we broke it off because I couldn't tell her about what I was doing work for anymore, she decided it was all your fault. Don't you remember that time she screamed at you?" Andy asked. Jack chuckled. Gwen had yelled at him enough times that he could easily picture her doing something like that. It did come as a surprise to hear that she had been engaged to Andy, though.

"Andy, do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if we hadn't met?" Jack asked. "I mean, you'd still be with the force, and would probably have a more simple life than you have now. I was just wondering if you had ever thought about it."

"You mean, do I have any regrets?" Andy asked. When Jack murmured yes, he continued. "No, I don't. For one thing, it brought me to you. And I'll never regret that," he said as he gently rubbed his hand across Jack's chest. He hadn't noticed, but he was touching bare skin where the fabric had shifted, and he had unconsciously worked his hand under the material. Jack hadn't stopped him, so he continued to stroke his fingers across the skin in an idle pattern. "I thought I loved Gwen, and I suppose that I did in some fashion. But I know now it never would have worked out. Even if I hadn't met you, I would have eventually found that it wasn't women who did it for me. I think the parts that I liked about Gwen were her more masculine side." Jack snorted softly in response. To him, she was all woman. "No, seriously. I loved it when she bossed me about. That aggressive side to her was the big turn on. But in day to day stuff - you know, when I first met you we were living together and I could see even back then it was going to be a disaster if we ever got married. But she was so set on being Mrs. Andrew Davidson. She could have done so much better."

"Has she found anyone then?" Jack asked, curious if Rhys would find Gwen in this reality.

"Hasn't really said," Andy responded. "But I saw her with this delivery bloke. Apparently she met him when she hired his lorry to move her out of the flat. Even though I told her she could stay there since I wasn't around anyhow, she insisted on finding a new place with new memories." He was silent for a few moments. "I guess I can't blame her on that. Funny how sometimes a chance event can turn your life around."

"Yeah," Jack said, lost in thoughts of his own as he thought about how a chance encounter with a blonde hanging from a barrage balloon had changed his own life in ways he never would have predicted. "Funny how that happens."

The two men were silent for a time, the conversation having finally worn down to just quiet between them. Jack found himself liking this young man who had taken Ianto's place in this reality. He had never really bothered to get to know Andy in his own universe. Usually he was there at some of their odder situations they investigated and was nothing more than a guard dog at the edge of the scene while Torchwood swept in and out again, having either determined it wasn't something that they were interested in or were, at which point they would dismiss the local constabulary and sweep away the evidence of whatever it was that had happened. After speaking with him tonight though, he realized that there were layers to Andy that he hadn't considered before. Mostly because he hadn't bothered to get to know him. It made him wonder how many other people that he would find interesting if he only took the time to get to know them.

Andy was drifting, half asleep as he thought about whatever circumstances it was that had brought Jack back to him. He listened to the quiet breathing as Jack inhaled and exhaled, the rumble low under his ear that was pressed against Jack's chest. He felt a nice lassitude, finally relaxed in a way he hadn't been since Jack disappeared. His thoughts wandered, thinking there was something different about Jack. Something had changed him, wherever he had been. He wasn't so brash, so heedless of others. Just by the questions he had asked about the rest of the team, it showed that he was concerned about the effects of his running off, but also that of his return. It showed a softer side to him that Andy hadn't seen before. That brashness was still there, but it was muted. Gentler. Andy found he liked this new side of Jack. He smiled to himself as he thought about it.

Jack felt he could finally relax for a bit. Andy wasn't questioning him, and that was a good thing. He was still undecided about how much he should tell the other man. On one hand, he tried to imagine how it would be to find out that the man he loved wasn't the same man at all, and that his lover was looking for another person entirely. He couldn't see a way out of going that route and not hurting Andy in the process. Even if he could get him to believe he wasn't the same Jack, for all intents and purposes, he would be. At least until his other self returned. And that would bring up a whole host of other issues for them to deal with. He was still worried about Suzie and how she was going to react. If anyone would be able to see that he wasn't the same man, it would be her. She had been there from the beginning, and so knew him better than the others. Though even he didn't know how much Andy knew about him. How much had his other self shared with this man? He wasn't sure, so he was going to have to be cautious.

He was thankful that Andy wasn't demanding anything else from him this evening. He wasn't sure if he was ready for that sort of intimacy, and he had a feeling that Andy would see the differences immediately. In a way he was also a little disappointed. He smiled wryly to himself. All right, if he had to admit it to himself, he was feeling a little randy. Here he had an almost naked man in his bed and all they were doing was cuddling together. Ianto would probably have laughed himself silly, he thought with a smile. The only time they had done that themselves was when they were dead tired or one of them was injured. Even then, they often wanted a bit of play to take the edge off before going to sleep.

He began to wonder what it would be like to make love to the man asleep at his side. He had a vision of Ianto telling him to move on. He wondered if he could when there was a chance of finding another version of Ianto somewhere else. In his travels so far, each other universe had shown him a man who wasn't the same as the one he had known. Perhaps that was a sign, he thought, and maybe the Tarot Girl had been trying to tell him that. Yes, he could find Ianto again, but it would never be the same man. Too many differences, too many circumstances that were different in each reality from the one he had been in. He shifted and Andy snuggled in closer to him, his arm wrapped around Jack's waist. Jack held his breath and waited for the younger man to slip deeper into sleep.

He couldn't help but react to the man at his side. A man who was obviously in love with his other self. He wondered if he would have seen it, or whether this other Jack had gone off unaware of the adoration this man had for him. Jack sighed softly. Andy was going to be hard to resist the longer he stayed. Again he wondered if it would be so hard to give him what he wanted. At this point he didn't even know if the Ianto in this universe would hold enough of the man he himself loved to be someone he could bring back home with him. He sighed, resting his cheek against the top of Andy's head. He resolved to himself that nothing was going to happen and sternly told himself to go to sleep.

The decision was taken out of his hands when he heard the shift in Andy's breathing which signified that he had fallen asleep. He smiled up at the ceiling. Maybe another time, he thought as he tried to clear his mind and rest. He was going to have to be on top of his game when dealing with Suzie in the morning, so best he get some rest while he could. He was going to need to do some detective work where Ianto was concerned as well. Maybe once he found the other man and had made an assessment of the situation, then he could deal with this Andy thing. It was with that thought in his mind that he finally drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time the rest of the team showed up the next morning, it was to find Andy hard at work on some research while Jack puttered away in his office. Toshiko was the first to arrive. She smiled as she heard Andy whistling as he worked. It was obvious that sometime the night before he and Jack had come to an understanding. He hadn't looked so happy in months. In fact, Toshiko thought as she logged into her console, even before Jack had left. Andy looked up as he heard her type on her keyboard.

"Morning! Let me know when you're ready for coffee. The pot's made and I can bring you over a cup," he said cheerfully. Toshiko smiled at him.

"I can get it myself, hon," she told him. He brushed her off and went past her to go get her a cup anyhow. When he returned with it made just the way she liked it, she accepted it with a smile.

"You're in a good mood this morning," she said with a mischievous smile. He grinned in response. "Have a good night?"

"Why yes, I did," he responded as he leaned back against the console next to Tosh's station. "A good night, but a fantastic morning." He couldn't help but grin at his friend.

"So I take it everything is okay with..." she jerked her head in the direction of Jack's office. Andy nodded and took a sip of his own coffee. While Jack had been reserved when they had gone to bed, something had changed his mind by the time they had woken up. They had been tangled up around one another and Andy had pushed just a little more to have some contact with Jack and he hadn't stopped him. They had made love for the first time in months and Andy had fallen in love even more deeply with Jack in the process. Andy didn't know what had made Jack change his mind, but he hadn't questioned it. "Oh, honey, I'm so glad for you both."

"Thanks," Andy responded. He felt like he wanted to shout it from the rooftop. Or at least the top of the water tower. He was feeling rather silly, but there it was. Toshiko moved closer to where he stood and she lowered her voice so that Jack wouldn't overhear.

"So, did he tell you where he was?" She asked him. Andy shook his head.

"No, he didn't. But wherever it was, I think it wasn't pleasant. There's something different about him, Tosh. Something that sort of broke him. I can't put my finger on it, but there were moments where I would look in his eyes and see..." he drifted off as he tried to describe it. "I don't know how to describe it. Incredible pain. Loss. Hurt. Like he was afraid to feel again. But we talked a lot last night. He asked me about all sorts of stuff. Wanted to know how we had been getting on. Asking about each of us. Like he was trying to grasp and hold onto something. I don't know. I don't think I'm saying it very well."

At that moment the alarm went off as the cog wheel door slowly rolled open to reveal Suzie and Owen. They came in together and nodded at Andy and Tosh.

"I suppose he's still here," Suzie said a bit sourly as she accepted a cup of coffee from Andy. He nodded and looked in the direction of his office. She scowled as she followed his movement. She gave him a long look. "I see he got right back into your trousers again."

Andy flushed and turned away. He was a private person and for Suzie to be so crass was a bit much for him. Owen raised an eyebrow and just watched them without saying anything.

"It's not really any of your business, is it?" Andy finally responded. He met her glance and stared her down. He wasn't going to let her cause problems between him and Jack. Not after what had happened between them this morning. That wasn't an act just to get on his good side. Jack wasn't like that.

Suzie stared at him for a long moment, but when he refused to look away, she just shrugged. "Guess he's here to stay. Well, for the moment, anyhow." She drained her mug. "I need to talk to him." With that, she put the mug down on Toshiko's desk and headed over to Jack's office.

Jack had been monitoring what was going out in the main room and so he was prepared when Suzie marched in and forcefully closed the door behind her. He looked up from the paperwork he had been going through and smiled as if they hadn't had words the night before.

"Good morning, Suzie. Sleep well?" He asked. He watched as she pulled the chair out and sat down. She didn't say anything but just stared at him. He matched her stare and decided to wait her out.

"So, you're really back," she said, not asking, but stating the obvious. He nodded, but didn't say anything. "Where were you?"

"I get around," Jack said evasively, not wanting to go into details.

"Why'd you leave us, Jack? Why? What happened that was more important than what we were doing here?" She asked, firing the questions one after another. "And why are you back now, after all this time?" Jack didn't respond to any of them. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Can't," Jack replied honestly. "Timelines and all."

"Oh, what a cop out," she said sourly. "Jack, will there ever come a time when you level with us? We're trying here. We believe in what we're doing. But when you take off like that without a word, only to return again without an explanation, it gets hard to keep on believing."

"Suzie, I'm sorry," Jack said. And he meant what he said. He was sorry that they were in this position. Sorry that he couldn't explain where he had been, because it wouldn't explain where her Jack had gone. And he honestly didn't know why his other self left. There were no indications or hints that he had found in his search of the records to give any clue as to what his other self's thought patterns had been.

"But Torchwood has always been and will always be more than just one individual. It was here long before I got involved and will be there in some fashion long after I'm gone from here," Jack said, knowing that he was telling this to himself as well as to Suzie. "And someone needs to protect the people here. To protect them from what comes through the rift. To cushion the harsh reality when the outside universe rudely knocks on their door. That's what you believe in. Not in me," Jack told her.

Suzie stared at him for a long moment, trying to read him. She sighed and slumped in the chair. "Damn you," she muttered, but it was a half hearted curse at best. "So why are you back?"

"Honestly?" Jack asked. She nodded. "I'm looking for answers." She let out what sounded to be a long suffering sigh again. He leaned against the desk and stared at her. She looked better than he remembered, before he also considered that the last time he had seen her in his reality, she had been in a body bag. He closed his eyes for a moment and willed that image away. She was alive here, and very much annoyed with him, both for leaving and for returning without an explanation. He wondered once again how long he could fool her. She was too observant. Sooner or later she'd twig onto the fact that he wasn't the same as the man she had known.

"So, we go back to what we were doing before you left?" She finally asked after staring at him for a while. Something was different about him, but it was nothing she could point to. More like a feeling. He did look more careworn than she had ever seen him before. Like he had been in a battle and had lost. She was going to have to pump the others for their opinions and see what she could put together.

"More or less," Jack said with a nod. He picked up the document that he had put down upon her entry. "The paperwork doesn't stop, does it?" He asked with a wry grin. She couldn't help but respond.

"Well, that will be one thing I won't mind handing back to you. I hate bureaucracy!" She declared, making him laugh. As the sound drifted out of the office Owen relaxed where he was sitting at his desk. Suzie had been an absolute bear the night before, and hearing laughter meant that they had finally come to an understanding.

Tosh looked up and smiled. Jack's laugh was a welcome sound. She watched as Andy brought a refill for Suzie and a mug of coffee for Jack into the office. From the outside looking in, she could see that Jack was actually genuinely happy to be back. The way he smiled up at Andy warmed her heart.

"Thank you, Andy," Jack said as he saluted the younger man with his mug. "Where would we be without you to keep us running?" Andy smiled with pleasure as he moved away to hand Suzie her refill.

"You drank the other so fast I don't think you had time to enjoy it," he informed her. She wrinkled her nose at him as she accepted her coffee. "Anything else you need?"

"You do realize that Andy is more than just a pretty face these days," Suzie said tartly to Jack. "He's an integral part of the team and a damn good operative." Andy flushed with embarrassment. Suzie wasn't prose to praise, so when she did make a comment like that, the impact was much more than if someone else had said it. He hadn't realized she had thought that highly of him.

"It's why I picked him for the team," Jack said as he took a sip of his coffee. "I know everyone's potential, and having looked through the records, I can see that all of you have been doing a fantastic job while I was gone." His eyes met Andy's. "I expect nothing less." Andy nodded and feeling that the two needed to talk more, withdrew, leaving them to their conversation. He closed the door and came out to the main area before leaning against a column for a moment. The look of approval in Jack's eyes meant the world to him.

"Everything okay?" Tosh asked and Andy was brought back to where he was.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay." He didn't say more and went off to do some work, leaving her and Owen alone. She stared thoughtfully after him for a long moment, but didn't pursue it. With a glance back at the two sitting in the office, she went back to work.

Jack found it amazingly easy to ease back into the swing of things. In a way, he was back to the beginning with a few changes. As the days started to pass he found himself getting more and more comfortable with the situation. From time to time he'd reflect on how dangerous that was, and that in some ways he could potentially be doing more damage by staying and interacting with the team than if he had just done what he needed to do and moved on. Eventually their Jack would return. And from what he was finding out based on what the others were letting slip from time to time, he didn't much like his other self.

It wasn't like he was radically different, but that events had shaped him in a different way. From what he saw of the private logs, this Jack was still the same cautious man from after the millennium. Still holding back, not letting himself get too involved. Not allowing himself to care too deeply, because to do so would be to open himself up to a lot of pain. Like the pain of Alex and the shocking events from that fateful New Years Eve had wounded this Jack far more than he himself had been. He longed to tell his other self that he couldn't live like that. That to hold back was to slowly die inside, leaving a husk of a person behind. He'd been down that road himself, and even with everything that had happened, he would still have done the same things, even knowing that he'd lose people in the long run.

It was in that introspective mood that Andy found him one night. It had been a quiet day for the team so they had been working on their pet projects that they pulled out from time to time when they had the chance. Suzie had been busy working in the metal shop. Owen was playing with some alien flora, working out why the plant reacted the way it did to sound waves. Tosh was working on her translation program. It left Andy at loose ends. He didn't want to do archiving. In fact, he hated doing it. He felt like it was a hopeless task and that he'd never get ahead. And that he was classifying stuff for people who wouldn't care and wouldn't look anyhow. But it was why he had been hired, so he did make an effort to do it occasionally.

When he eventually went to find Jack, he couldn't find him anywhere. Asking around, he found out that Jack had gone out a few hours before. He checked the tracker and saw that the SUV was in the garage, so Jack was nearby. Searching the CCTV, he found him on a nearby roof. Andy smiled. Jack hadn't done that since he had come back. It was like the final piece had fell into place and Andy finally felt like Jack was here to stay. With that in mind, he climbed the fire escape up to the roof where Jack was. Jack stood on the edge, arms crossed as he looked down at the people below. Andy knew he made enough noise walking across the gravel not to startle the other man. He never understood why Jack took such risks, though. One slip and… Andy shuddered. Best not to think about it.

"You found me," Jack said as the other man came up behind him.

"Yup," Andy replied. "You haven't done this in a while," he said. Jack chuckled and turned around. He could see the nervousness in Andy's eyes at how cavalierly he treated the danger he was in. His smile broadened. Easy to do so when you know it wouldn't kill you. At least, not permanently. He wondered as he looked at Andy how he'd react if he told him the truth. Told him why he was up here. It was Andy that had led him up onto the roof to reflect on what he was doing there. He had fallen back into the Torchwood routine so easily that it had taken a chance encounter with a report to jar him back to reality. Earlier that day he had been kicking around the Hub, working in the firing range, letting the team get on with their projects and feeling at loose ends. He had decided to tackle some older paperwork and in the midst of it realized that he hadn't tried looking for Ianto yet. It had stopped him cold.

He found he had settled in and didn't want to leave. That he had found a place where he could start over again. It wasn't the same team that he had known, and even the same members were different by how events changed them, but there was a part of him that wanted that second chance. That chance to change the events in this world so that his team didn't die one by one. And that he liked what he had found he had here with Andy. That last had shocked him to the core. Because he knew that eventually, his other self would come back. If he was here when that happened, he was going to have a very awkward situation on his hands.

And if he was being honest with himself, in a way he was harming Andy as well. Andy had blossomed over the last few days that he had been there and he was finding out that he was different enough for the others to notice and that they liked him better than they liked their own Jack. That bothered him a lot; because he knew that eventually when his other self returned that he was going to have to move on, leaving his team to deal with the consequences. It made him realize that he needed to do something to head it all off at the pass. Maybe he could get a message to his other self. Tell him that he needed to hang onto these people, because they needed him. That they loved him, and if he would just admit it to himself, he loved them.

Jack had laughed as he stood on the roof and looked out over the city that was so deeply etched into his soul. He was thinking about having a conversation with himself, and if anyone else had heard what he was thinking, they would have locked him up as incurably insane. He had gone from contemplation of confrontations with himself to examining his own motives and why he was there. His original goal had been to find Ianto, and he found himself making excuses not to do so. That in itself sent up a signal flare of warning, he knew. He was getting in too deep and the reason for that had just climbed up to the roof to find him.


	5. Chapter 5

It didn't surprise him that Andy knew how to find him. He had found over the last few days that Andy was very in tune to his habits. Even after several months of absence, Andy had fallen back into old habits just by having Jack present again. Jack had been so absorbed in learning about this new member of his team that he hadn't known in his own reality and it was while reading the report that it had struck him that there was something different about it. It wasn't as precise as he had come to expect from Ianto's usual thorough research. It didn't have the devious and often intuitive leaps of logic that Ianto had when assessing some report from UNIT that had often made Jack smile. Ianto had challenged his way of thinking. Had led him to other conclusions when often his mind was on something else. And he only realized how much he had come to appreciate it when he sat reading the report that had seemed familiar, but somehow different. And that was when it hit him. Andy wasn't Ianto. He was a different man with different experiences and a different way of looking at the world. And it was that contrast that brought Jack back to the reality of why he had originally found his way there in the first place.

The realization of how he was allowing himself to sink into this new group without a thought for why he was there or what the ramifications would be when his other self had returned had been sobering. It had driven him out of the Hub and into the city. He needed to think, and getting some height and perspective on the situation was an old habit.

As Andy helped him off the ledge, he looked at the man by his side. Andy looked more confident and secure than when he had first arrived. And it made him realize that he had never thought about what would happen when he had to leave. And eventually, he was going to have to go, hurting this man unintentionally. As Andy smiled up at him, he considered again the possibility of just telling him the truth.

"Ready to come back home?" Andy asked. The moment seemed to pass and Jack bit back what he might have said if he had let his thoughts continue on the path they were on.

"Yeah," he said as he clasped his arm around the other man's shoulders. "I am." Together they made their way back down to the street level and walked side by side back to the Bay. Jack had his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat as he walked and he smiled wryly has he reflected on that as well. Andy didn't like the coat. Said it was too bulky, and hid Jack's better attributes. In fact, there had been references that made Jack think Andy had spent some time in the past trying to modernize Jack's way of dressing, and not making much headway in it. It was another contrast that should have got Jack thinking, but he had just ignored it.

They made their way back in the tourist centre office and Jack reflected that at least that hadn't changed much. Andy fulfilled the same capacity that Ianto had here, maintaining the front of the office and using his local knowledge to assist the travelers who happened by from time to time. Suzie thought it was a waste of time, but Jack found the place comforting. Familiar. Andy opened the door for them and they both entered and went down the lift.

Andy watched Jack, knowing he was lost in thought. He wanted to ask him what it was that had him so absorbed. Distracted. Introspective. He hadn't seen this side of Jack before and he found it intriguing. Usually Jack held up a flashy exterior and a smile that acted as a mirror to deflect a closer look. But these days he was more open. Relaxed. Like he was comfortable that his team saw the real him. Andy found it refreshing.

"Hungry?" Andy asked. "I can send out for take away if you want." Jack shook his head, still pre-occupied with his thoughts as they exited the lift. Tosh looked up and smiled at the two men as they came in. Jack glanced upwards and catching her glance, smiled broadly as he made his way over to where she was working. He put his arms around her in a hug as he looked over her shoulder at what she was doing.

"How's it going?" He asked, indicating the screen with his head. She smiled shyly. Jack had been much more tactile than he had been in the past, and she could understand why Andy was so happy these days. She practically preened under his attention as she explained what she was doing. He nodded, taking the time to listen to what she was telling him. In the past he hadn't been bothered with the technical stuff because he felt that they didn't need to explain it to him for it to work. But he had realized that each of them had the need to shine, and to have a bit of his attention for what they did. Toshiko practically blossomed under his attention as she spoke and he bit back a smile of pride. He loved each and every one of them, which was why he was finding this all so difficult to walk away from what he had found here.

"Keep it up. It sounds like you've made some great progress on it," Jack said encouragingly. She nodded and looked back at the screen. Giving her shoulders a squeeze, he turned away towards his office. Andy stood back and watched him as he wandered by the opening to the autopsy room and poked his head in for a quick word with Owen. Suzie was down below somewhere, so when he came out of there, he headed over to his office. "Andy, I don't suppose…"

"Coffee is on the way," Andy said with a smile. Jack nodded in thanks and made his way to his office. He took a fresh look around as he entered, seeing it with new eyes. Walking around, he touched the artifacts he had on display, each of them carrying a memory for him. Making his way around his desk, he sat down and stared at the top. Piles of reports were stacked to one side, next to the coral growing on his desk. He glanced through the window and saw that the staff was busy, so he pulled the computer keyboard closer to him and started a search on Ianto again. This time, he went past the cursory legal reports and went into the police system to see what personal notes the investigators had. There may be something in there that might give him a clue as to how to find Ianto. He smiled ruefully. The investigators had plenty of notes on Ianto.

He got so absorbed in what he was doing that he was unaware that Andy had come into the office and was standing beside him. Andy looked over his shoulder and tried to read the scanned hand scrawled document that Jack was reading, but it was too illegible to read from where he was standing. Jack flipped to the next document and a mug shot appeared on the screen. The man was very scruffy looking, with longer hair, an earring and an unshaven appearance. He also didn't look too happy, but then it was a mug shot, Andy reflected. Who would be happy to be arrested? He put down the mug next to Jack's hand, careful not to jostle him.

Jack twitched as the clatter of the mug startled him out of what he was doing. He hadn't noticed Andy walk in. He looked over at the steaming mug. "Thanks," he said. His chair tilted as Andy leaned on one arm and peered at the monitor.

"Is this someone I need to be worried about?" Andy asked. Jack blinked and was thinking of how he was going to respond to that when Andy continued. "Is he running artifacts or something?" Jack sighed and leaned his chin on his hand, his fingers covering his mouth.

"Not sure," he said, noncommittally. "Let's just call him a person of interest." He thought to himself that was a bit of an understatement. "No trace of him from police records, but I thought I'd do a little digging."

"So what's so special about him?" Andy asked as he moved the mug closer to Jack's hand. Jack automatically picked it up and he took a sip. He stared at the screen, not wanting Andy to see anything in his face as he looked at the mug shot before him.

"I'd like to talk to him," Jack finally responded. "I've got a hunch about him." Andy pulled back and inwardly Jack sighed with relief.

"Well, if you need any help, let me know. I could call in some favors with the boys and see what might not be in the reports," he said. "Who were the DIs?" Jack paged through the document to the end of the report to look.

"Hansen and Purty," Jack said, finally looked up towards the other man. Andy made a face. "Not good people to talk to?"

"Not really," he said as he perched himself on the corner of Jack's desk. "It's actually not a surprise if there's not enough information there. Hansen is notoriously lazy with written reports. And there was a running joke on the floor that a felon could walk away from him while he was looking at the evidence that would convict them right under his nose. Purty's not much better. Man has to weigh no less than 25 stone. I remember McCaffrey once said that the man couldn't fit in the cruiser and had to have the seat specially modified so that he could." He sighed. "The man is a pig."

"Sounds like a guy I'll avoid then," Jack said in an amused tone. "So, ex-PC, how would you go about finding this man?" He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs under the desk as Andy thought about it.

"The old fashioned way, I guess." Andy said. He watched as Jack sipped his coffee. "Walk the beat and ask around. There are known places that people hang out, depending on their MO." He waited for Jack to put his mug down. "What's on his sheet?"

"Oh, just about anything, if it's illegal," Jack said with a sigh as he turned back to the monitor. He was grateful that Andy didn't lean back over his shoulder again as he read out the list of arrests. "Petty larceny, breaking and entering…" he paged through the report and stopped. "Prostitution?" It boggled the mind.

"Oh, then you'll find him at the magic roundabout," Andy said knowledgably. Jack glanced over and raised an eyebrow. "Once a rent boy…"

"Always a rent boy?" Jack asked, feeling amused at Andy's comment.

"It is easy money," Andy said with a shrug. "Well, if you don't catch something and end up being treated for it, that is." He understood all too well what might drive someone to it. "Where did he originally come from?"

"Cromwell council estate," Jack said, knowing the information was the same as in his universe. Andy frowned as he thought about it.

"No worse than any other area, really," he said with a shrug. "Though a few years back there was some rough trade operating out of there. So maybe this bloke just got involved in the wrong crowd."

"Yeah, I guess," Jack said. He closed down the window. "Well, I'll just wait and see if anything pops up on him at some point," he said nonchalantly, not wanting Andy to focus on the fact that he was so interested about Ianto. He changed the subject, asking Andy for information on some other report, and Andy went off to find out more information for him. Sitting back in his chair, he stared at the wiggling screen saver on his display as he considered his options. He needed to find Ianto in this world. Find him, and speak to him. See if there was any possibility of him being someone that Jack could take back with him.

Outside the office, Andy watched Jack for a moment. Jack was distracted by something. Whatever it was had been what drove him up to the rooftop. Andy tried to figure out what Jack was thinking. It wasn't the easiest of tasks. Jack could be an enigma when he wanted to be. But Andy felt that there was something to that man that Jack had been looking for. After all, it was the first thing he started searching for as soon as he stepped into his office. Andy resolved to look up the information himself and see if there was anything that would point towards Jack's or Torchwood's interest. He headed upstairs to do so, where he could sit at a computer and get some work done without anyone bothering him.

Jack turned his head back to the monitor as the screen cleared and it beeped. He smiled knowingly as a program he had put in there with several parameters had been triggered by someone doing a search. Andy was looking up Ianto. Jack pulled up the internal CCTV and monitored what Andy was doing upstairs in the Tourist Centre. He wasn't surprised, since Andy would take an interest in anything he was looking into, if only to assist him in the search. He studied the display for a long moment, watching Andy closely. There didn't seem to be any sign of jealousy or suspicion in Andy's expression or posture, which was a relief to Jack. He didn't know how he would be able to explain Ianto to Andy. He rested his chin in his hand and just stared at the screen, not really thinking much of anything at the moment.


	6. Chapter 6

Jack was still at his desk when Suzie found him later in the evening. She stood outside the door and stared at her boss. He seemed absorbed in whatever it was he was looking at on the screen in front of him. She leaned on the door frame and waited for him to notice her.

"What can I do for you, Suzie?" Jack asked. He had been aware of her watching him for the last few minutes, but hadn't reacted to her scrutiny.

"You know, I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something different about you," she finally said as she cleaned the grease off of her hands. She had been polishing some metal work she had been working on in the shop. It was always hard to get the grease she used for lubrication off her hands. She continued to rub the soft cloth between her fingers as she took a seat in the chair opposite his desk. "I still would like to know what happened wherever you went."

"I know you would," Jack said. He didn't say anything else, and she scowled at his unwillingness to tell her or the others where he had been and what had happened. She had even cornered Andy in the basement looking for answers. He had protested and told her that he didn't have any more information than she had. It frustrated the hell out of her that Jack wasn't telling them anything. Turning off the CCTV, he focused on her fully. "And I've told you why I can't tell you."

She sighed as she stared at him. While he didn't look quite as careworn as he had when he first showed up, there was something elusive about him that made her antsy. It made her question why he had come back. What were his motives? Was he here for them, or just passing through again? She was of two minds as to what she really wanted.

Over the past few days as alarms had gone off, he had gone right back to being the leader he had been before he left. In some ways it had been a relief to step back and let him take control. She hadn't wanted to be the one to make the hard decisions, so having him here to do so took the strain off her. Relieved the strain of wondering if a decision she made was going to get one of them hurt. Or worse, killed. Just before Jack had returned she had been well on the way towards becoming a basket case about it. Owen helped some, but he had his own issues as well. She thought that perhaps that was why she was so scared Jack was going to leave again. Because it would leave her in charge, and she didn't want that. Didn't want the pressure of having to be the one to make the hard decisions. To be responsible.

Jack watched her and he could almost see the gears turning in her head as she stared at him. He wondered what she was thinking about as he watched her absently continue to rub the cloth over her hands well after all the grease had been removed. Her brow was furrowed as she continued to examine him and he shifted a bit uncomfortably, feeling as if she was trying to see into his skull.

"What can I do for you, Suzie?" He finally repeated as the silence began to make him feel uncomfortable.

"Don't leave us again," she replied, deciding to lay it all out on the table. "You may think we can function on our own, but the truth is we can't."

"Suzie…" Jack began, but she cut him off. She needed to get it all out and said so he would understand how much stress she had been under holding things together while he was gone.

"Hear me out Jack," she said as she put up a hand to forestall him. "I know whatever it was that made you leave must have been important. I know you. You wouldn't take off like that unless it was the end of the world or something like that. And I know I'm the only one you've told about your past. About what happened to you. And I know that if you can find your doctor, you have to go do it. To find those answers. I can't pretend to understand what it is like to live forever. To constantly see the people you care for die right in front of your eyes," she said passionately. He closed his eyes in response. "And I don't think that this doctor of yours is going to fix you. If he could, he would have already. He wouldn't have left you like this. No one could be that cruel.

"But while you were gone, someone had to take over. That was me, and I didn't want to do it. Wasn't ready to do it. To deal with the mess with UNIT and the government," she continued. "I stepped into the space because someone had to do it. It certainly wasn't going to be Tosh or Andy. Owen might have, but he would have been ten times worse with dealing with the bureaucratic red tape that comes with the position."

"I've looked at the records," Jack interrupted. He wanted her to see that she was qualified to take over. That she was a strong leader. She might not feel like it, but she had that natural ability. "You did a damn fine job while I was gone. Exactly what I would want and what I would expect, Suzie. You may not feel like you did, but looking at what happened over the last seven months I can see it. You made good decisions. Some of them were hard, and I know what strength that had to take to go there. You did good. Don't ever think you can't do it."

Suzie stared at him for a long moment. It was the most praise she had ever heard him say to her. "But I made mistakes," she protested, thinking of all the false starts she had had and the errors in judgment that had caused problems for the team. She was startled when Jack laughed.

"You don't think I'm not capable of making mistakes?" He asked her with his hands spread out to indicate the area around them. "You don't think that sometimes I kick myself from one end of the Hub to the other when something goes wrong and I realize that I could have prevented it if I had just taking a different route? It comes with the territory, Suzie. Sometimes you make mistakes. The thing is to learn from them, or to use them to your advantage. Sometimes a mistake can be turned around when you look at it from a different angle. You've taken this team and kept it together, despite challenges from the government, the military and UNIT. You've gotten the job done for months on your own. Even kept the paperwork in order," he said as he put a hand on the pile of reports on his desk. "That's no small task. So give yourself some credit."

She was listening to him, he knew. And hopefully she was accepting that she could be a good leader. Even if she didn't feel like one. Hell, there had been enough times when he felt like he had been the worse leader that Torchwood had ever had, and that was saying something. She stared into his eyes and saw the sincerity of what he was telling her within them. It warmed her in a way she hadn't been expecting. He believed in her. Had left knowing that she would be strong enough to pick up the pieces and keep things running. Unconsciously she sat up straighter in her chair. Jack saw the change in her immediately, and wondered how his other self had interacted with her in the past. He needed for her to be strong. To keep that core that was important to her and hold onto herself in this world.

"Thanks," she finally said. He noticed that sometime during their conversation her hands had stilled and were resting in her lap. She was no longer nervous about him, or about herself and her place in this world.

"We good?" He asked her. She nodded. "Good. I mean every word I said, Suzie. You are amazing. Don't lose touch of that."

"I won't," she said. She pushed herself off of the chair. "I need to get back to what I was doing." She started to head out and turned back towards him, which made him tilt his head to one side as he waited for her to say whatever else it was she wanted to say. "I don't know what happened to you while you were gone, and I think it wasn't fun. But I like the way it's changed you. Thank you, Jack." Leaving him with his mouth hanging open in surprise, she turned and left his office.

Jack stared after her for several moments while he processed what she had said. Was he really that different? He thought back to the man he was at the start of the millennium. Before everything changed. If the Jack that occupied this reality was that same sort of person, then he would be secretive and not really wanting to reach out to the team. To feel when they were injured, or to care too deeply for them because doing so hurt. He had tried that route, and it had almost turned him into a zombie.

He stared pensively at his vortex manipulator, wondering where his other self was. Was he ever coming back? And if not, how would that affect the team when he eventually moved on? If he could move on, he voiced the thought internally. He turned and looked through the window out into the Hub. A Hub that was the same as it had been before Abaddon. Before Grey. Before everything had changed. And he looked at the people there that he had nurtured, giving them a better life than what they had before he had met them. And how in turn, each of them had made his life so much richer since they were in it.

He watched as Suzie moved over to where Toshiko was working. The two women put their heads together as the computer expert pointed out something on the screen to her team mate. The sight made Jack smile. Behind them off to the side, Andy was busy cataloging something that had come through the rift. There was no sign of Owen, but from the sounds that reverberated in the space, he knew that the doctor was playing his video game again. He had missed this. Missed the little things that he had taken for granted before. Missed the interactions with the people he worked with. People he cared for deeply. Andy looked up and peered in his direction, no doubt checking on whether he was in need of caffeine. Their eyes met and Andy smiled at him as he lifted his own mug. Jack shook his head slightly and the young man nodded before going back to what he was doing.

He rested his chin on his hand and thought. He really needed to find Ianto. From there, he could make decisions about everything else. Although if the other Jack came back, it was all a bit moot, anyhow. Jack decided the first order of business was to find the man in question. Once he had found him, he could assess what to do next. Nodding to himself, he pulled up Torchwood's interactive map of Cardiff and proceeded to scan the areas that Andy had pointed out to him before. He made a note of where they were, then made the determination that he was going out that night to hunt for Ianto. The problem would be losing Andy. He couldn't have the other man with him, so he was going to have to distract him with something. Something would come up he was sure, so he put it out of his mind as he went back to the pile of paperwork awaiting him.


	7. Chapter 7

The opportunity presented itself several days later by way of rift alarm. Suzie was out of the office, leaving Tosh, Andy and Owen with him in the Hub. It was now late evening, so he sent Andy and Owen out to investigate, leaving Tosh to direct things from her computer. Once their investigation was underway as they searched for the crooks fencing artifacts, Jack decided he could make his move.

"Toskiko, I'm headed out for a bit. Need to look into something. Tell the boys not to wait up for me, so you can all go home," he said as he slung his coat over his shoulders and pushed his arms through the sleeves. He checked again, making sure that he had removed his Webley and left it behind. He felt a bit awkward without it, but it seemed to be the wisest course of action, considering where he was going. "I'll monitor things and call people in if I need to."

Toshiko was busy concentrating on tracking their errant thief, so just nodded distractedly as she gave directions to the two men in the field. Jack took the opportunity to slip out the back entrance. He didn't need to go far enough to drive, so walked down the city streets to where he had to go. Though there had been some sort of effort to build up and modernize the area, there was always a certain feeling to a place that held the more unsavoury elements, and he knew he was headed in the right direction. He smiled to himself as he thought about the times when people would be chided off the street corners and from loitering around alleys and buildings by the community around them. But this area of Cardiff was a bit more impersonal. It was a place where no one looked out for their neighbors, but remained insular, not wanting to know one another or their business. This suited the criminal element very well. Jack turned the corner and knew he was in the right place. It was only a little more than a mile walk from the Hub, but the area he now found himself had a familiar feel to it.

As he got to the magic roundabout, he could see people loitering. A car cruised by and several people came out of the shadows by the bushes to make a pitch to whomever was inside. The car went around before finally stopping. A young girl in a black mini jumped into the passenger seat. As the driver, a much older man drove by, Jack could see that the girl was barely into her teens. He sighed. So much potential and it was thrown away. Shaking his head, he continued to walk on the outskirts of the roundabout. He scanned the area, looking for a familiar face. He didn't find one, though he did have several young men and women solicit him. Smiling, he brushed them off and kept on looking.

After his third time around the roundabout with its whimsical construction sculptures, he sat on a nearby wall that did a somewhat poor attempt to protect the residents from the outside world on East Tyndall Street. Closer to the roundabout, someone had planted some bushes to hide the view, but that served only to give the criminal element more of a place to work from, and closer to their doorstep. He shook his head ruefully as he sat down and decided to watch for a while. As the night wore on, more traffic on foot and by car came around as people looked for that elusive bit of release that they could only find by spending a little of their hard earned cash. Jack leaned against the wrought iron railing, his hands in his pockets as he watched the human traffic.

Occasionally folks would scatter when one of the local constabulary came by. The car would circle around a few times, pausing here and there to discourage the street workers. It paused in front of Jack and a PC peered out the window at him. He nodded nonchalantly and the man stared at him for a long moment. Their partner leaned over to peer out the window and his eyes widened as he obviously recognized Jack. He quickly shifted gears and moved on, making Jack grin. It was always the jaw line, he thought to himself. Never to be forgotten. Chuckling softly, he turned his attention back to the people who came back out of the bushes after the police car had passed.

After a while, he started to get antsy. Maybe Andy was wrong to assume that since he had been picked up for prostitution that Ianto would continue to frequent the same area. He was still trying to wrap his head around a world where Ianto Jones was a common thief and rent boy. Granted, his own Ianto had flirted with a criminal past, but it had been really minor stuff. More time passed and Jack was starting to get bored. He shook his head. Here he was with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world and what was he doing? Sitting on a wall waiting for the one person he was looking for to walk by. He snorted softly to himself. He didn't want to use the technology because he didn't want his team to tune into what he was doing. He pondered that thought for a while, lost in his own mental meanderings that he completely ignored the person who had stopped nearby.

"Looking for someone?" A familiar Welsh voice broke into his thoughts. Startled, he looked up. Because of the street light behind the man he couldn't see the other's face. But he'd know that voice anywhere. He felt his heart speed up in response. Every time he went to another world and met Ianto there, this happened to him. He lifted his chin and tilted his head as he flashed a smile at the other man. Would this Ianto be so radically different from the man he had loved, he wondered?

"Maybe," he said, trying to play it cool. He stretched out his booted feet so that if the other man moved on, he would have to walk around Jack to do it. He debated on what to say next, but 'Do you come here often?' wasn't one of those questions that he really wanted answered.

As the man turned to scan the roundabout, light from behind him illuminated his face. Jack blinked. This Ianto was bleached blond, though one could see the dark roots where his natural color was growing out. It made him look a lot different. Younger, somehow. Maybe in this business, that was a good thing for him, Jack mused. He watched as Ianto scanned the area. No doubt looking for the police, Jack mused. Or perhaps his next customer.

Apparently he came to a decision, because he sat down next to Jack on the wall. Jack glanced over, taking in the tight blue jeans, leather belt and an open neck shirt. It was an outfit that screamed 'buy me' to Jack.

"Got a smoke?" Ianto asked him and Jack shook his head. It was never a habit that he had picked up, even during the war. Ianto leaned back against the railing and propped his trainer against the edge of the wall that he was sitting on, which emphasized his assets to Jack. It made him smile to think that Ianto was hitting on him as a potential customer. He looked up from the area of Ianto's crotch and met his eyes. "Like what you see?"

"Yeah," Jack said with a nod. There wasn't a part of Ianto in any universe that he didn't like. "I do." He smiled as he wondered how far he would let this go. Would he pay to spend more time with this man and get to know him? "Hungry?"

Ianto looked startled for a moment and then grinned. "Is that a euphemism for something?" He asked with an arched eyebrow. Jack burst out into a laugh at the question.

"No, it means exactly what it sounded like. Are you hungry for food?" Jack asked. Ianto stared at him for a long moment as he tried to figure out what he was up to.

Jack could see that his face was thin. Thinner than when he had first met a very young and determined Ianto Jones for the first time. He asked the question because he wanted to get to know this man, and preferably without having to rent a fleabag hotel room to do so.

"You're one of those, aren't you?" Ianto finally asked, letting out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like disgust. "Are you a volunteer or does the CCC actually pay you to come out here and help?"

It took Jack a moment to see where Ianto's thoughts were taking him. "What? Do I look like I work for the Cardiff City Council?" Jack grinned at the other man who was still regarding him a bit skeptically. He pushed back his coat, revealing his old fashioned state of dress. Ianto took in what he was wearing and frowned. No, he really didn't look like he worked for the city. "I asked you if you were hungry because I wouldn't mind having some company while I eat. That is, if you're interested." Ianto continued to stare at him for a long moment.

"Well I have to say that this is a first," he finally muttered, running a hand through his hair so that it was sticking up in short spikes on top of his head. "And this isn't a ruse to get me someplace where you can then lecture me about all the things I'm doing wrong with my life?"

"Nope," Jack said. "I'm the last person in the world who would lecture you on what you should be doing. I'm only looking for company, and you seem like someone I'd like to get to know better. So, are you interested?"

Ianto looked down and then back out to the roundabout. Traffic was scarce after the last circuit by the police and it was obvious that the pickings were slim. He hadn't eaten since the day before and that last meal wasn't the best, since he could only afford to get the half off food that the local store was going to toss anyhow. It was worth paying not to have to dig it out of the bin, but not much better than that. He looked back at Jack who was just scanning the area as if he didn't care one way or another what the answer would be.

"Yeah, I'm interested," Ianto finally said. "What do you have in mind?"

"You pick," Jack said, thinking that the other man might be more comfortable that he wasn't being set up if he could pick where they ate.

"There's a good pub not too far from here," Ianto finally acknowledged. Jack nodded equitably and pushed himself off the wall.

"Works for me. Lead on," He said with a grin. Ianto got up and dusted the dirt off his rear end before pointing down the side street which curved away from the roundabout. "My name's Jack," he said, figuring it was time to introduce himself.

"Joe," Ianto said as he started walking. Jack had to catch up with him since he had been thrown by the fake name for a moment.

"Really?" He asked. "You don't look like a Joe," he said as he put his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat and strolled alongside his companion.

Ianto shrugged, his hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans. It made the material more taught across his body and Jack had to look away to avoid staring too closely. He knew damn well what was underneath those layers of clothing. He got lost in thought for a moment as he wondered whether the other man was going commando. Probably was, he figured, since it would be easier, depending on how far he was willing to go for money. Because of this, he totally missed Ianto's response to his comment and inwardly he cursed himself for not paying attention. "Sorry," he said, using the lorry passing by as an excuse to get Ianto to repeat what he said.

"I said what kind of name were you expecting?" Ianto… no Joe, Jack corrected to himself and immediately rejected the name. It really didn't fit the man walking by his side.

"Oh, I don't know. Something more… Welsh," Jack said with a laugh. Joe really didn't work for him. Ianto slanted a glance at him and grinned wryly. "Sorry, don't mean to offend, but it doesn't seem to suit you."

"Well, Jack seems to suit you just fine," Ianto/Joe said. Jack grinned at him in response as he pointed out the direction of the pub, which was just a bit further down the street. When they got there, he opened the door for Jack, allowing him to step inside first. Jack nodded in thanks and looked around the dim interior. The locals were at the bar to the right, with a couple of older gents tossing darts. Most of the tables were empty, so Jack chose one off to the side against the wall, well away from anything being tossed about. Ianto followed him over and took the opposite seat.

"Seems cozy enough," Jack commented as he peered over at the chalkboard above the large Brains sign that listed the evening specials. "What do you recommend?"

"What's the limit?" Ianto asked bluntly. He figured he might as well as get that out of the way.

"No limit, order whatever you want," Jack said generously. Ianto stared at him for a long moment before nodding. He was going to take him at his word.

"In that case, I'd recommend the local ale. Pete brews it himself and it's damned good," Ianto said. "Steak and ale pie is good, as is the Gammon steak and chips," he continued, picking some of the pricier stuff on the menu. Jack nodded amiably. "Fish is good as well." At that point the barman came over to take their order.

"Haven't seen you round here in a while," the older man said gruffly to Ianto before looking at Jack. "Interesting outfit. You do those war games things the kids are all doing?" Jack looked confused for a moment before he realized what the other man was asking.

"Reenactments?" Jack asked and the man nodded. "No, my dad was a volunteer with the RAF way back when, so I wear it to remind me of the service he did for the country during the war."

"Yeah, my Da worked with some Yanks way back then. Good chaps, for the most part," he said with a nod. "What will you be having?" Jack raised an eyebrow at Ianto and nodded for him to order.

Ianto ordered the steak and ale pie along with a pint, though he looked at Jack to see if he was going to object. Jack smiled and said he'd have the same. The man told them they had made a good choice and went to put their orders in. He returned immediately with their drinks and Jack also asked for a glass of water as well.

"So," Jack finally said once they were alone. "It's a nice place you've got here."

"It's okay," Ianto shrugged. He had a skittish look to him, as if he was going to bolt if Jack said the wrong thing. He took a long sip of his ale and then slumped in the seat, relaxing a bit when Jack didn't immediately start to lecture him about his lifestyle. He looked askance at the glass of water the barman put on the table, so Jack picked up his pint and took a pull from it. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Jack said as he put his glass back down on the table.

"Why me?" Ianto asked. "Why pick me to take out?" He knew there were plenty of choices there, but maybe it's because he was the only one to approach the other man. The rest of the boys had been too leery of doing it, thinking Jack was undercover. Ianto hadn't really cared. There was something about the other man that had piqued his curiosity, so he decided to approach him. Even if it didn't lead to any work for the evening, at least he'd have a decent meal in his stomach. He'd play him for that and more if he could.

"Why not?" Jack asked with a smile.

"Do you always answer a question with another question?" Ianto asked with a furrowed brow. Jack laughed at his expression.

"Do you think I do that?" Jack asked and Ianto looked startled for a moment before laughing back.

"See?"

"See what?"

"You're doing it again," Ianto said, still grinning as he relaxed more fully. For a moment, Jack forgot that this wasn't his Ianto. Despite the bleached blond look, at this moment with that look on his face, it could have been his own Ianto. Then the younger man moved and the moment was gone as he leaned forward again. Jack blinked against the unexpected surge he felt in response. He kept his hand around his drink, glad that holding it gave him something to do. He left his other hand trembling in his lap. "That must drive people bonkers."

Jack focused back on what Ianto/Joe was saying. "Probably," he acknowledged. "Okay, why you? Again I ask, who not? You seem like a good chap to sit down and chat with over an ale," he said as he hefted his glass in a salute.

"And that's it?" Ianto asked. Jack was having a hard time thinking of him as Joe. It really didn't suit him at all, so he decided to ignore it. He shrugged in response. "Nothing else?"

"Do you want something else?" Jack asked him and had to bite back at laugh as the other man rolled his eyes in response. He grinned. He was having fun at the moment.

"That's more of a question for you," Ianto said as he leaned back in his chair. He rested his elbow on the empty seat next to him and the movement made the fabric of his shirt stretch tight against his chest. Jack swallowed. He knew what the other man was asking, and he also knew why. This was how this Ianto made a living. Jack tried to reconcile the thought in this head. Sex trade. What had bothered him earlier as he sat on the wall and watched what was going on was that so many young people were making a living doing that very thing. At a time when they should have been out enjoying themselves with their friends without a thought of making money by offering favors in return. "I take it you like what you see."

Jack nodded. He did like what he was looking at. He looked up from where he had been focused on Ianto's chest and met knowing eyes in a frank stare. Ianto shifted and they bumped knees under the table. Ianto pressed his leg against the inside of Jack's knee. Jack immediate felt himself respond. No matter what reality he was in, there was something about this man that he would always respond to. No matter what he looked like, or how different he was, in the end, at least physically, he was the same man that Jack had been attracted to from the first moment they had first met.

The silence stretched out between them as Jack considered a response. He wanted this man so bad he wondered whether Ianto could feel his leg trembling under the table. He wished they were alone somewhere so he could move on how he felt and just lay Ianto out before him, so he could once again explore that body. Kiss every part of it. Stroke the skin that lay beneath the veneer of clothing. Make him tremble the same way he was trembling now. Unconsciously, he licked his lips as he considered the possibilities.


	8. Chapter 8

Ianto knew he had the other man when he shifted uncomfortably. He almost preened at the hungry look on Jack's face. It was a look that told him he'd be getting more than a good meal at the end of the night. He'd also get some money to live on, and get some good food for a couple of days. He knew he could play him, and just had to reel him in.

Ianto extended his foot in between Jack's legs and rubbed his thigh against the other man. His nostrils flared as the smell of some exotic cologne wafted over towards him. His skin prickled in response. He normally didn't get work with such a good looking or younger man like this. Often it was the older men who were sneaking out on their wives as they sought out a bit of rough trade that they could enjoy for a few moments before going back to their boring, everyday lives. Lives which consisted of boring jobs that they had to do in order to take care of their perfect little families. All the while sneaking out on the side for a bit of a rough tumble in a hotel room or the back of their car before going home to the wife. He even had regulars. Men who sought him out, looking for him to treat them the way they wanted. Some liked a bit of kink to their action, wanting him to punish them and take control. Others wanted to act out some rather disturbing family scenes. He did whatever they wanted, as long as they paid him the money.

The tableau was broken by the clatter of dishes in front of them as the barman delivered their meals. Jack twitched as he broke his gaze with the man before him and looked up at the man who put the plate in front of him. "Thanks," he said, brought back to the real world by the sound. The man nodded gruffly and went back to tending the bar, leaving the two men alone.

Jack was relieved by the interruption. He had been lost in the other man's gaze, totally forgetting the circumstances of where they were and how much this other man didn't know about him. He deliberately looked down at the plate before him and shifted so he was sitting back a bit and away from the enticement that Ianto offered. For a price, he reminded himself wryly. "Looks like a good choice," he commented, glad that his voice sounded fairly normal to himself.

Ianto silently cursed the interruption. He had been almost certain that in another moment, they would have just abandoned the idea of the food and gone off to shag somewhere. He had never been drawn to a customer like that before. Usually it was just performing whatever service they wanted, and most of the blokes wanted to do the shagging, so it hadn't mattered whether he was into it himself. This time he wanted it. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Maybe it was a good thing, he reflected to himself. There was something about this man that should be sending danger signals, but it was like his body wasn't listening. What had seemed like a simple come on a short while ago for a few quid now threatened to be something that he couldn't afford in his line of work: emotional involvement.

Jack noticed the flicker of several expressions flit across the other man's face as he picked up his fork and started to eat. Jack followed suit, wondering what was going through his mind. Something interesting had happened. A shift in the dynamics, and he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. But something had made Ianto uncomfortable. He thought about that for a moment or two as they silently ate. He noticed that the younger man was moving slowly, eating carefully. It was something he had seen in the past. It was the motion of someone who didn't get enough to eat, so when they did have some food, they stopped to appreciate it, hoping to make it last. He had to avoid frowning in response. This was not the way this man should be living.

Ianto kept his eyes on his plate, taking his time savoring the fresh taste of the food. It wasn't often that he could afford anything even as simple as a pub meal, so when he got the chance like this, he wanted to enjoy it. He closed his eyes as the good smell wafted over him with the steam that came out as he dug into the food. A low chuckle startled him and he looked up to see Jack watching him. He blinked. For a moment there, he had seen something else on Jack's face. Something indefinable. The expression was fleeting, and he wasn't sure what he had seen there or whether he was even interpreting the look properly. "What?"

"The expression on your face," Jack said with a grin, pushing his other thoughts away for the moment. He'd think about how he could find a way to get Ianto some money in a way that would help him without it feeling like charity. Something that would allow him to get out of this rat hole he was in.

Ianto got a bit defensive at Jack's comment. He scowled. "What about it?"

"Nothing. Just like seeing a man enjoy his food," Jack said. He tried to diffuse the situation since obviously Ianto was a bit prickly. "And you look like you are enjoying it."

Ianto paused with the fork halfway towards his mouth. He was trying to judge just what it was that the other man wanted. He hadn't started lecturing him like he had expected, and he clearly was responding to him physically. It confused him and made him unsure of the other man's motives. He stared at Jack and watched as he calmly took a sip of his water. What was it that Jack wanted?

Jack went back to eating, not wanting to pressure Ianto at all. He could see that the other man was still suspicious of him. And so he began to talk. He talked about the city, and some of the people he knew there. About stuff that he thought might be of interest to Ianto, based on what he knew of his own Ianto's likes and dislikes. Despite the differences he was curious to see what similarities there might be in this Ianto. After all, in this reality, the man still lived in Cardiff, though he wasn't part of Torchwood. He still probably liked the same things. At least, Jack hoped so. He was looking for a common bond to work from and to see where things would go from there. So he continued to talk as they ate, speaking between bites of food.

Ianto began to relax. Jack was an amusing dinner companion, and he knew the city quite well for an American. He listened to Jack's ramblings, finding that they had a lot of similar interests. Though he had dropped out of school at a young age when he had escaped the council estate and his family, he was still thirsty for knowledge and had discovered a new home in the local library where he had found that there were good places to hang out there where no one bothered him. He also had learned to move about, never staying in the same one for any length of time, or in the same spot. The libraries were a haven for him. They were warm and dry in inclement weather and he could pick anything he wanted to read. It wasn't like school where he was forced to focus on things that were of no interest to him. He found his discussion with Jack engaging as they discussed various topics from local politics to literature. Jack seemed well informed in the classics, which wasn't Ianto's strong suit. But he was intrigued enough by their talk that he resolved to look up some of the things that Jack referred to while they chatted.

In fact, he was so caught up in their talk that Jack had to remind him to eat before his food got cold. He applied himself to finishing his steak and ale pie, using a slice of bread to mop up the last of the gravy on the plate. His stomach felt comfortably full. Possibly for the first time in months. Up until then, it was just a matter of grabbing whatever food he could scavenge or afford, and usually it was never enough. The barman refilled their drinks and Ianto wondered just how much Jack would be willing to pay for more of his company. He was feeling awkward about approaching the question, now that he had gotten to know the other man a little better during the meal. But here was a man who had some money to burn, so why not offer him some dessert perhaps, on top of that excellent meal?

"That was good," Jack said as he finished his own meal. Instead of sitting back like Ianto would have expected him to after eating so much, he lent forward towards Ianto. The intimate posture warmed Ianto. The look in the other man's eyes told him that he was desirable, and he felt something odd in his stomach. He wondered if it was just because he wasn't used to eating so much food, but he didn't think that was it, because he only felt that when he looked across the table at Jack and into his eyes.

"Thought you might like it," Ianto said. He looked down at the table and idly moved his glass around, making a pattern of rings on the tabletop. "So, what now?"

"How about something about yourself?" Jack asked. "I've been doing all the talking here, and I haven't let you get a word in edgewise. Tell me about you. What do you like, dislike, that sort of thing."

Ianto shifted uncomfortably. Even at the best of times he wasn't used to talking about himself. And he began to wonder if this whole meal was an elaborate set up by the other man to find out more about him so he could turn him in. He looked up through his lashes, trying to figure Jack out. His instincts were telling him that this wasn't what Jack wanted, and that perhaps he was genuinely interested in knowing more about him. Even still, it was asking for an intimacy he didn't share with his clients. His body, yes. How he felt and information about himself, no.

Jack could see the thoughts flitting across Ianto's expressive face as he thought about the question. He decided to wait and see what would happen. He took another pull of his ale. It felt liberating to be comfortable enough to drink without worrying about some emergency or other. Gone were the days where he felt he had to stay sober enough to be responsive to whatever it was that came through at him.

Ianto finally shrugged. "Not much to tell, really," he muttered. He hunched his shoulders, feeling a bit defensive. He looked so lost for a moment that Jack acted without thinking. He reached across the table and stilled Ianto's hand which was almost twitching against the tabletop.

"Hey, no pressure," Jack said gently. It was obvious that this man before him had been hurt in the past, and wasn't willing to share stuff about himself. Heck, even his Ianto, who hadn't been this damaged had had secrets that had taken him a long time to unravel. And even then it was only after they had been through a lot with one another. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

Ianto looked down at the hand resting on top of his own. He decided to make Jack forget about wanting to know more about him. He turned his own hand so that it was clasping Jack's. "Do you know I can read palms?" He asked. He made a show of turning Jack's hand over and examining it.

"Really?" Jack asked, feeling amused by the abrupt change in topic. He had to control himself from reacting to the other man's touch as he traced a path along the lines of his palm. "And what do you see?"

What Ianto actually knew about palm reading he got from an old woman at a ratty old carny and some books in the library that he had searched out after meeting her. He stroked the palm of Jack's hand and had to hide a smile of satisfaction when he saw the goose bumps rise up on his arm in response.

"That's quite some lifeline you have there," he commented and Jack barked out a laugh.

"Really? Never would have guessed," he said with a grin. He rested his free elbow against the table and leaned in closer to Ianto so he could see what the other man was doing. Ianto shifted his grip on Jack's hand so that he held his wrist, twisting the hand slightly to follow the path of some lines on the edge.

"Mmm," Ianto said as he lightly caressed the skin. "The distance from the thumb tells me that you are a bit of a traveler," he said, glancing up at the other man briefly before looking back down again. "This is your heart line. It shows me that you are a romantic at heart."

"Is that so?" Jack asked. He peered at the skin wondering how anyone could make any sense of out it. "How accurate is any of this?"

"How accurate would you like it to be?" Ianto asked, looking up with an impish grin. "It's not like it's an exact science, Jack." Jack felt a ripple of anticipation when he met Ianto's gaze. It felt like there was a subtext beyond the palm reading and that they were communicating on a totally different level than the obvious. Once again he felt Ianto's knee nudge his own and he pressed back, feeling his breath quicken in response.

"I've found that science isn't exact, either," Jack said. He took the next step and grasped Ianto's fingers in his hand, stroking the backs of the fingers purposely. They stared in one another's eyes for a long moment. "I think we're done here, don't you?" Jack asked in a low voice. Ianto nodded, but said nothing. With an unspoken agreement, they both stood up and Jack tossed some money on the table to cover the meal. He saw Ianto's eyes widen at the amount he left behind. Clearly he had overpaid, but he didn't care. He trailed behind the other man, one thing on his mind. Ianto gave the barman a casual wave and the man gave him a curt nod in response. Jack saw Ianto's mouth twist as he looked at him and he frowned, wondering what was making him grimace like that. Then he saw that Ianto had noticed that the owner had checked their table to make sure he had been paid. He couldn't blame the man, since he had probably been cheated before on money for a meal, but it was obvious that Ianto had taken the glance the wrong way. The younger man's shoulders hunched as he shoved his hands in his pockets as they paused outside the door. The wind had picked up and it seemed to cut down the narrow street. Ianto turtled a little more in response as he looked up and down the street.

"Where to?" He asked Jack. It was his move now, and Jack assessed the area before looking at Ianto. The other man looked at him frankly, as if he knew exactly what Jack was thinking. "You've got a place we can go to?" Ianto took the chance that Jack was what he appeared, and not a stooge for the city.

"Sorry," Jack said with a regretful shake of his head. "Can you recommend a decent place nearby?" Ianto stared at him, obviously assessing him as to why they couldn't go back to wherever he was living. He saw something flit across Ianto's face. He kept his own expression as it was, giving Ianto an open look that would hopefully make the other man trust him.

Ianto wondered what Jack's story was. Maybe he was just a bloke who didn't want Ianto knowing where he lived so he couldn't be ripped off later. Maybe he had a family at home and was double dipping his wick, so to speak. Or maybe he just couldn't bring Ianto back for other reasons. He thought about the nearby places. Most of them were just places to flop, and he instinctively knew that wasn't what Jack meant when he used the word decent. Coming to a decision, he nodded. "This way," he said, and started heading up the street.


	9. Chapter 9

Jack caught up to him after a few steps and matched his stride. They walked up the hill of the street and Ianto steered them around the corner to the better area of town.

Jack had a moment's worry where he wondered if he was going to have to delete the CCTV footage. Eventually Andy would go looking for him. Hopefully he would be scanning the rooftops and not the streets below. He stifled a sigh, wondering when his life had gotten so complicated. He saw that they were in the area of some better buildings, and that Ianto was leading them to what used to be an old warehouse and what was now a Novotel. That worked fine with Jack.

Ianto hesitated at the doorway. "Do you want to…?" He trailed off, suddenly feeling awkward. Jack gave him a reassuring nod and entered, gesturing for Ianto to follow. Ianto did, but hung out near the waiting area while Jack approached the desk. It didn't take long for Jack to get a key and a few moments later he was back where Ianto was sitting and flipping through a magazine that someone had left on the coffee table.

"Ready?" Jack asked. He was feeling a bit nervous and he mentally chastised himself. He knew that they were going to have to talk, since for Ianto this was a business proposition. He still didn't know how he felt about that, but at this point he didn't care. He just wanted to get him alone. Ianto looked up and tossed the woman's magazine back onto the table and stood up. He followed Jack to the lift and they got in, Ianto leaning against the back wall while Jack pushed the button for their floor.

Jack started talking again, rambling on about something about when this building used to be an old munitions warehouse back in the war. As the doors opened, he continued on, and Ianto found himself relaxing again, the nervousness abating over the little historical tour Jack was giving him as they walked down the hallway. He was feeling a bit more stable as Jack opened the door to the room and gestured for him to enter.

Stepping inside, he walked into the darkened room, waiting for Jack to insert the key into the slot which would activate the lights. A moment later they came on and he looked around. Jack had gotten them one of the executive rooms, which was quite a bit nicer than the rooms he normally saw. He turned around with his back to the window and watched as Jack stepped further into the room. He took a breath to steady himself as he watched Jack remove that long coat he had on.

Jack noticed Ianto's eyes following the coat and he had to turn away to hide a smile. Obviously some things never changed, and this Ianto too had a fascination for his greatcoat. He smoothed the fabric over the back of the chair by the desk and looked at Ianto.

"There's a bar here, if you want a drink," he said, making conversation. Ianto shrugged. Jack opened up the small fridge and peered inside. There didn't seem too much that would appeal to a young man, so he just grabbed a couple of waters and pulled them out onto the counter.

"You certainly like water, don't you?" Ianto asked and Jack chuckled. That broke the ice and he watched as Ianto approached him from the other side of the room. He stopped and Jack handed him a bottle.

Looking down at it, Ianto studied it. No doubt the price for this one bottle would buy him a halfway decent meal somewhere, he thought to himself. Shrugging, he opened the bottle and took a swig, using it to wash away the taste of dinner from his mouth. Jack drank from his bottle and Ianto moved closer.

"So," Ianto said as he noticed Jack watching him closely. "Here we are."

"Yeah," Jack said, his voice sounding gravelly, even to himself. He found himself reacting to the nearness of the other man and he swallowed.

Ianto saw his reaction and wondered if he was nervous. Now that they were actually in the room, he found his own nervousness dissipating. Sure, it was a fancier hotel room than he was used to, but one did the same thing in it. That knowledge gave him a level of confidence to push a little further and he moved so he was inches away from Jack. He was slightly shorter than the other man, but not by much. Ianto decided to give him a little taste of what was to come before they discussed money. He leaned in and gave Jack a kiss.

Jack wasn't expecting that, and for a moment he froze before instinct took over and he pressed up against Ianto, leaning into the kiss. He opened his mouth to Ianto's insistent tongue and he allowed the other man to press the advantage. He reached up to clasp the other man's shoulders, holding him in place. He felt dizzy from lack of air or something when Ianto finally broke it off.

"So now that we're here," Ianto said as he reached out and traced the line of Jack's belt against his waist. He was aware of the grip of Jack's hands digging into his shoulders and the ragged breathing of the man before him. "What is it you want?"

"You," Jack said, his voice low and filled with need. "I want you." Ianto felt a thrill of satisfaction as he heard that raw tone to Jack's voice. He wasn't sure if it was because he knew he had a guaranteed sale, or because he had that sort of effect on the other man.

"And what exactly do you want me to do?" Ianto asked, his lips against Jack's. That initiated another kiss and Jack felt like he was drowning. Ianto pressed his hips against the man before him.

"Everything," Jack said. He was taken back to another time when they had played at this very thing. It had been a night where Ianto had left the Hub early; leaving him a cryptic email that only had an address and a time. When Jack had arrived at the appointed time, it was to find himself at a club, the rhythmic pounding of the music leaking out the doorway. Intrigued, he had entered past the bouncer and after pausing by the bar, he scanned the dance floor. Ianto had immediately stood out, wearing skin tight clothing. He was dancing by himself and Jack had been mesmerized by his performance. In the time he stood there and watched, Ianto had brushed off at least three advances from other men. That had galvanized Jack to action and he had pushed his way through the undulating crowd until he had reached Ianto at the centre. Immediately, Ianto started dancing up against him, using the crowd to entice and tease Jack. He had lasted through three head pounding songs before he had grabbed Ianto's hand and hauled him out of the place. Ianto had just given him a look and led him to a nearby hotel where they had played out his rent boy fantasy out for the rest of the evening.

"Well, that's going to cost you," Ianto said in a low voice, shattering Jack's fantasy memory. Abruptly he was brought back to the here and now and the fact that the Ianto pressed up against him was not the same man he had played games with in and outside the Hub. Jack stared into the other man's eyes and found he didn't care. He just needed to be with him.

"That's fine," he said gruffly, the desire evident in his tone. "Whatever you want." Ianto raised an eyebrow at him, but he only nodded in response.

"A hundred and fifty quid," Ianto said, naming a price far higher than he had ever asked before. Jack didn't even blink. He nodded again, acquiescing. He reached into his back pocket and just handed his wallet to Ianto. He could have it all at that point. He just didn't care.

Ianto flipped open the billfold and glanced inside. Jack easily had more than double what he had just asked. He didn't feel so bad about that anymore, and knowing that Jack was good for it, he tossed the wallet on the desk. Reaching up to clasp his hands against either side of Jack's neck, he leaned in for another kiss. He liked kissing this man. There was something that made him want to keep on doing it until they both were going to expire from a lack of air. Laughing as he pulled back, he grabbed Jack's braces and tugged on them, pulling the other man along as he backed over to the bed. Jack was happy to let him take control, and he felt a surge of power knowing that this man was his to play with. To play with and get paid for it, he thought with a sense of wonder. Jack had obviously given over control to him, and he was reveling in it.

"I think we're going to have fun tonight," he said with a low growl that made Jack shiver in response. "You just sit here and let me take care of everything." Jack obeyed, unable to say anything in response. Although he had had more with his Ianto than just this, right now this physical touch was what he needed from the other man.

What followed next was something that Jack would never forget. He knew that this wasn't his Ianto, nor did this man know him at all. But for Jack it was enough to satiate a long standing need, and he totally forgot about his team, Andy and anyone else for the next few hours.

It was later on when they were done that there came that bit of awkwardness where normally they would have parted, but neither wanted to do so. Ianto had sat up with the intention of getting his money and making some excuse to leave, but when he looked at Jack he found he couldn't do it that way. They sat in silence for a long moment, Jack laying in the bed while Ianto stared down at his feet, wondering how to proceed forward, when Jack shifted and got Ianto's attention.

"Can I ask a favor?" Jack asked. Ianto looked up and shrugged. Encouraged by that, Jack patted the bed beside him. "Lie down with me?"

Ianto thought about the odd request. In some ways Jack was making this into something personal, and it made him a bit uncomfortable. He saw no reason to say no, so he stretched out on the covers next to Jack. Jack snaked an arm under his shoulders and pulled him close into a hug. Ianto tried not to freeze at the sudden movement. For as intimate as he could get with a client, it usually didn't involve hugs or cuddles. That wasn't what most of the men he worked with wanted. He found his cheek pressed against Jack's chest and he could feel the warmth of the other man's flesh against his face.

Jack could feel the tension in Ianto's shoulders as he lay down beside him. He wrapped his arm around Ianto's back and just gave him a light squeeze. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"No problem," Ianto muttered, still a little unsure of where this was going to go. He thought about the money in the wallet and decided that if that was what Jack wanted and he was willing to pay for it, then he could pretend to cuddle.

Jack knew that this was just an illusion, and that the man in his arms was not his Ianto, but another man who due to the circumstances of his world here, had different values and needs. Emotionally he was all over the place, with past memories overlaying the present. There were countless times where he and Ianto had lain together, just like this in the past. He smiled up at the ceiling as he thought. There was so much they hadn't said to one another, and so much they had, just by doing stuff like this. He glanced down at the spiky blond hair sticking up off of Ianto's head and he lifted his free hand so he could look at his vortex manipulator. He didn't care what the younger man thought as he stretched his arm over to where his other hand was around Ianto's shoulders and he pressed a button which shut off the lights. Ianto twitched as the lights went off.

"How'd you do that?" He murmured. Jack only chuckled and didn't respond. Since Ianto hadn't been looking, he assumed there was a remote on the nightstand and that was what Jack had been reaching for when he turned off the lights. The only illumination came from the window and the streetlight outside. "You tired?"

"No," Jack said. Ianto waited a moment, unsure of what to do. Normally he was gone right afterwards, leaving when they were done. Usually he didn't want to spend more time than he had to with the type of men who sought him out. But with Jack, it was different. There was something more personal about their encounter this evening. Ianto couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he thought it had to be one of the more surreal encounters he had ever had with a customer.

Jack smelled the spicy scent of a cheap cologne as Ianto rested his head down against his chest. It wasn't a smell that he normally associated with his lover, so it helped to keep his focus on the fact that this wasn't his Ianto, but another man.

Ianto wasn't sure what to expect. When Jack began to speak again, he found the lack of light helped focus his senses so that he was paying attention to what he was saying more so than if he had been able to look at him while he spoke.

"You know I told you that I thought the name Joe didn't fit you," Jack said in a conversational tone. He felt a slight rumble as the man in his arms chuckled softly. "I understand if you don't want to give me your real name, but I don't think I can call you Joe."

"It's Ianto," he finally responded. It didn't matter if this man knew his real name. And besides, he was only telling him his first name, so he didn't see whether it really made a difference.

"I knew it," Jack said with a laugh. "Welsh to the core." Like it would be anything else, he thought to himself. "That suits you much better, you know."

"And how do you know what suits me?" Ianto asked. He head bobbed up and down as Jack laughed. He was enjoying the feeling of Jack's hand stroking his back. He was making patterns and running his fingertips up and down his spine. It made him tingle and he found he liked the sensation. It satisfied a yearning deep within him that he hadn't realized was there.

"I just get a sense about people," Jack said. He smiled upwards, feeling happy. Just lying in bed together, this felt so right. He wasn't sure where this was going to go, but already it was better than several of his past encounters. He knew he had to act on how he felt. Perhaps this would be the man that he could take home with him again. Or maybe he could just stay here, and make a new life for himself here. In some ways, that would be a potential nightmare, since he had no idea when and if his other self would return. Plus in this universe, there was no Gwen. He had actually checked in on her and found that she was working her way up the ladder in the police department and doing quite well for herself. That gave him a warm feeling inside. At least one of the people he cared about was safe in this universe.

Ianto's thoughts were whirling around in his head. He was confused by what had happened and realized that in one encounter with this man called Jack that he had come dangerously close to losing himself this evening. He found himself wanting more and he ignored the warning bells which were going off in his head. He had promised himself a long time ago not to get emotionally involved with anyone. That direction could lead to disaster, and he had seen many acquaintances go down that road and get hurt in the process. Once it went beyond a business transaction it was possible to suffer damage over the long run.

The evening was a fantasy come true for Jack. He had found Ianto in this alternate universe and they were together again. Of course this man didn't know the slightest bit about him, and he wasn't sure how he was going to tell him in a way that would make sense. He also felt some guilt for the man he had abandoned back at the Hub. He didn't want to get Andy hurt at all, and what he was doing at this moment was hurtful if the other man ever found out. He pushed that thought out of his mind, not wanting to deal with it at the moment.

He took the time to really look at the man. Even in the dim light, he could see differences between this man and the Ianto had he known. There was a slight scar on his chin, no doubt from some childhood escapade. As Ianto's breathing slowed, Jack could see that his ribs were more prominent as well. It was obvious that he didn't eat as much. Probably didn't get the chance to indulge, Jack thought to himself. Again he reminded himself to think of a way to funnel some money from one of his accounts without it looking like charity. That was, if Ianto didn't want to come back with him. He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned his head against his hand as he considered how he would go about telling the truth about himself.

Ianto glanced over at Jack, but with his back to the window it was hard to see the other man's face. He was quiet and seemed to be almost absentmindedly stroking his chest as he was lost in thought. He could smell Jack's cologne fading a bit and he wondered if he was just getting used to it or perhaps Jack's perspiration earlier was what had set it off. He let his thoughts drift, enjoying a lassitude that he normally didn't get to experience. Jack lay back down by his side.

The two men were silent for a while. Jack could see that Ianto was tired and he was happy just to be with him. He knew when Ianto fell asleep, hearing his breathing getting deeper. Jack turned on the bedside lamp so he could watch him. This Ianto looked so much younger when he slept, the cares of the world he lived in no longer a concern as he dreamed whatever it was he was dreaming. He had a little smile on his face and Jack wondered what was going on in his head. Jack's lips curled upwards in response to the expression on Ianto's face.

Over the next couple of hours he just tried to work out the scenarios where he could explain the truth to this Ianto. Could he do it and not scare him off? Could he entice him to come back to his reality? And was it worth going back to his own reality? He knew that Gwen was waiting for him to return, so he really did owe it to her to do so. But a part of him wondered if it was best if he didn't return. Maybe her life would be easier without him.

A slight snore startled him. His Ianto had been an abnormally quiet sleeper and Jack had often lay awake watching him when they had been together. He moved so that he could rest his head on the pillow next to Ianto. When the young man didn't stir, he pulled him into his arms to hold him. Ianto rolled over and pressed up against him, still out like a light. Jack held him close and just breathed his scent in. That smell was the same, the other man's natural body odor of honest sweat from their activity covering the cheap cologne smell which had faded some time before. Jack brushed his lips against Ianto's temple before resting his chin on the top of his head. He stroked the smooth skin of his back, enjoying the feeling of holding him again. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine that the past was different and that none of the events with the 456 had happened. If only, he thought to himself. He felt his eyes burning in reaction and quickly changed the direction of his thoughts. . He kept on stroking the younger man, enjoying the feeling of skin on skin. After a while, he drifted off, feeling like he could truly relax for the first time in a very long time, now that he had this man in his arms again.


	10. Chapter 10

When the cog wheel door opened, Toshiko barely let the door roll open enough for her to squeeze through, though she had to wait for the steel gates to open before she could completely enter the Hub. She tapped her foot impatiently. During the night she had gotten the most fantastic idea and had almost gotten up to come in early, but she knew Jack wouldn't have been happy if she had. He was really adamant about them getting rest when they could, and they had been there late before dealing with the kid fencing rift artifacts that had been coming through practically on his doorstep. She had been drifting in and out of sleep, alone in her bed when it was like she had just had a vision of a quadratic equation. It seemed to hang there before her eyes in the darkened bedroom, the letters glowing green in a simplistic heuristic way that had made her sit up and gasp, her heart racing with excitement. After sitting up she pulled her laptop over to her from where it sat in its usual resting place on her nightstand and started typing as if possessed, the image burned into her brain like a vision of the holy grail.

It had been something that had been bothering her for months. She had been working on this problem for one of her programs and had just been stumped. She knew it should work, but the program kept on running up errors every time she compiled it. At first she thought it was the alien device she was trying to interface with. She had tested it, and knew that the simple responses she was able to get from it indicated that it should be able to work a higher level of programming. She had hoped to interface it into the Torchwood computer system, since she thought it would help revolutionize the rift predictor program she had been working on since she first started at the underground base. But every attempt she had made had been stymied by these errors that had made no sense. Sometimes she felt like the proverbial moth at the flame, batting herself against the problem and only coming away singed and bruised every time she ran into a roadblock. She had even considered abandoning the project, and had actually put it away for a while, going onto other things.

That had seemed to do the trick, and it was when she wasn't thinking about it at all that she came upon her revelation. She had been so excited by her idea that she hadn't been able to sleep the rest of the night and had sat up in bed writing code – the long formulas and equations flowing effortlessly from her fingers. She couldn't access the mainframe easily from her flat, so she worked on what she could. When the faint light of dawn started to show through her bedroom windows she decided that it was morning and that Jack wouldn't object too strongly to an early arrival. She did have a moment of hesitation as she came in the tourist centre entrance as she wondered if she was going to interrupt Jack and Andy in an intimate moment, and for a time her hand hesitated on the button below the desk as she debated on whether she dared to access the CCTV from upstairs to check on them before barging in. Eventually, she decided she couldn't wait, and that she would make enough noise entering the Hub for them to be warned of her entrance.

By the time the cog wheel door was rolling back, she had forgotten all about what Jack and Andy might be up to, her mind focused solely on her computer program. Hefting the laptop bag onto her shoulder, she squeezed through the steel gate as the gap widened enough for her to slip through and she headed with a single minded purpose to her desk. Setting her laptop bag on her seat she logged into the computer, not noticing whether anyone was about. It was only when she turned to pull the laptop out of the bag that she saw Andy. He was sitting on the stairs leading up to Jack's office, his head resting against the railing. He hadn't reacted to her arrival. She stopped what she was doing and stared at him.

He was still wearing the clothes he had on the night before when he and Owen were out hunting their thief. She could see the stains from the place where he had slipped in a car park while chasing the man and had landed heavily into a puddle of motor oil that had leaked out of some car that had been parked there earlier. Owen had surged on ahead and had collared the crook, which had given Andy time to recover and retrieve his gun which he had dropped when he fell.

"Andy?" Toshiko asked hesitantly. Something was wrong, but she didn't know what. "Andy, are you okay?"

He looked up at her, his eyes staring at her for a moment before he blinked and turned away again. She completely forgot what she was doing and put the laptop on her desk unopened as she headed over to where he was sitting. "Andy, what's wrong?" Involuntarily, she glanced upwards over his shoulder towards Jack's office, but it was dark. "What is it?" A moment later when he didn't respond she knelt down in front of him and answered her own question. "It's Jack, isn't it?"

"He's gone again," Andy said in a dull voice.

"What?" She asked, shocked. "You mean gone, gone?" He nodded. "How do you know?"

"He never came back last night," Andy said, finally looking up at her. She almost flinched at the pain she saw in his eyes. "I looked, but he wasn't in any of the usual places. He hasn't answered his comm., and I can't find him anywhere. I think he left us again."

"No," Tosh said in a soft voice, quietly denying his statement. "He wouldn't leave us again without telling us." He stared at her miserably and she could see that he hadn't slept at all since she had left the night before. "Not this time," she said, more to herself than to him.

"Then where is he?" Andy asked. He had searched everywhere he could think of, but there had been no sign of Jack. Tosh sat back on her heels for a moment as she thought. She went back over the evening before and remembered him saying he was going out, but she had been so focused on the chase that she couldn't remember what he had said.

"Let's go look at the logs," she said. She tugged on Andy's hand, intent on getting him moving. Perhaps if she could get him engaged, he would snap out of this despondent mood he was in and start to think. She felt awful that he had been left here on his own all night, worrying about Jack. "Let's go back to last night and see if we can look at the records." He perked up a bit at that. He had been in so much of a panic thinking Jack had left again that he hadn't really thought to work backwards from the evening before and see what Jack had said or where he might have gone. He had just assumed he was off brooding again, as he had been the other night when Andy had found him perched on the edge of the roof.

Tosh brought up the internal CCTV and worked her way to the time where she thought Jack had gone out the evening before. It was actually later than she had thought, so she spent a little time scanning in fast motion. Andy closed his eyes since watching was making him feel a little sick. He never could handle those kinds of visuals, they always disoriented him. When he heard her sigh in satisfaction he opened his eyes again and turned towards her display.

It showed an image of the main room. She was working at her computer and directing Owen and Andy when Jack walked into the screen. He paused for a moment, waiting for a good time to interrupt. After several minutes when it became obvious that no time was going to be good, he just gently put his hand on her arm to get her attention enough to impart his message. Tosh didn't even remember nodding distractedly, but apparently he took that as an acknowledgement and he left the Hub. She switched to an external view and they could see him walking out through the garage area to the car park beyond. When she switched cameras again, it was to see him walking off in the direction of Buttetown.

Andy frowned. He was definitely walking, and had in fact walked right past the SUV, clearly ignoring it. Where was Jack going? Tosh skipped ahead to another camera and then stopped the playback. Jack was gone. She went back, but there was nothing. Resting her chin on her hand, she looked closely at the image. Andy peered over her shoulder, trying to see what it was she was looking at. She swore softly in Japanese.

"What?" Andy asked, looking from her face to the screen and back again. "What do you see?"

"He looped the footage," she muttered. She went back to the previous camera and followed Jack in the frame until just where he turned the corner onto Hemingway. She saw that he raised his hand up and pointed it just as he came around the edge of the building. He touched something on his wrist strap and that's when she saw that the image on the other window flickered. At first it looked like an electrical hit, but it really was a timed loop. She stared, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she skipped onto the next camera in line. It showed the same image, which was nothing but a view of the street. "Damn him."

"So," Andy thought for a moment about what it was that Jack might be doing where he didn't want his team to know where he was or to follow him. "Jack's doing something clandestine."

"Maybe," Tosh mused, her mind racing for possibilities as to other camera locations that Jack may not have considered. She brought up the central grid and began doing a search for endpoints. Every one she checked nearby showed nothing. "So the question is, what is Jack up to?" She leaned back in her chair, her program forgotten as she thought about Jack. "Was he working on something that he doesn't want us to know about?"

"Good question," a voice said from behind them, and Andy spun around to see Suzie standing in the doorway. Tosh had left it open so there was no warning that she had come in, Owen at her heels. She had heard enough to know that Jack was up to something. She looked at Andy. "You would know best. What's he been doing in his office the last couple of days?"

Andy shook his head, mystified. He didn't know, and certainly Jack hadn't shared anything with him. Suzie stared at him for a moment before sighing loudly.

"Right, I'll get into his computer myself and find out," she muttered. She stalked towards his office and went inside. The room was as it normally was, the items Jack normally had out placed where they were, papers, folders and bits of stuff that Jack played with while on the phone to UNIT or Whitehall scattered about the desk. She sat down and stared pensively. "What are you up to?" She wondered.

Andy had followed her and stood in the doorway, hesitant to interrupt. She tried logging into the console using what she knew to be Jack's usual passwords, but met without success each time she tried. She was getting irritated. "You better not do a runner, Harkness," she muttered. She missed Andy's convulsive swallow at her comment. "I've invested way too much time in you to do that to me again. Not now." Eventually, she got so frustrated that she hammered her fists on the keyboard in frustration. That galvanized Andy into action and he surged forward to stop her from trashing the desk. She sat back with a scowl and glared at him.

"He wouldn't leave without telling us," Andy said, forcing conviction into his tone. "Not this time."

"How can you be so sure after the last time?" She asked, feeling a little bitter. She also felt abandoned and bereft, and it bothered her that his absence could provoke those feelings inside her. Pushing away from the desk she stood up, her hands braced against the top. "It wouldn't be the first time, after all."

"But he's different this time," Andy said. "I know it."

"Yeah, that's what bothers me," she muttered as she pushed past him to go back out to Tosh. She had been ready to have Tosh search all of the CCTV footage again when the sound of the lift being activated stopped them all in their tracks. They looked at one another. Each of them was already here, so it could only be one other.

The doors opened and Jack stepped out. He had a sack in his hands as well as a take away tray with coffee cups perched precariously on top of one another. Stepping through the open doorway, he smiled at the group. "Good morning. Anyone up for coffee and doughnuts?"

"Where the hell were you?" Suzie asked. It wasn't until she felt a sharp pain in her hand that she realized her fists had been clenched so hard that she had dug her own nails into her palms. She forced herself to relax and tried to ignore the sting.

Jack stared at her before scanning the rest of the group. Silently, he took in their stances. Toshiko was standing at her console and he saw at a glance that she had the city CCTV system up. He couldn't see the timestamp from where he stood, but he could guess well enough what she had been doing. Owen was seated at his desk, his arms crossed over his chest and a sullen expression on his face. Jack's gaze went to Andy and he took in his rather mucked up clothing.

"What happened to you?" He asked as he moved forward and put the coffee holder down on the nearest desk. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Andy said in a low voice. He looked up at Jack but his boss seemed to be looking at his ruined suit. Andy didn't know if that was just an excuse not to look him in the eye, but every nerve ending told him that Jack was avoiding something. Jack moved forward and scanned him closely as if reassuring himself that Andy was okay.

Jack had not expected an early morning reception when he had arrived. He thought that he was going to be able to sneak back in, but a stop upstairs at the tourist centre had showed him that the group had already arrived and had noted his absence. He had backtracked back out to the Plass to get some breakfast as an excuse but had realized as soon as he saw Toshiko's computer display that they had been looking for him. But what had not only shocked him but had filled him with more than one kind of guilt was the state that Andy was in. He obviously hadn't slept and had no doubt been worried all night long about Jack and where he had disappeared to. He had also had a rough time with the capture of their artifact thief the night before, and Jack was concerned that he had harmed himself. But most of all, he felt guilty as he saw the look of relief on the other man's face as he realized that Jack hadn't abandoned them again.

"I'll have a coffee, thanks," Owen said as he adroitly bypassed the two men and grabbed one of the coffee cups out of the holder. Lifting the lid, he grinned before taking a sip. "Ah, just what I need this morning!" His actions seemed to diffuse the tension that Suzie was under as he picked up another cup and passed it to her. He looked at Jack for a moment but he had already checked Andy out the night before so he knew he was fine. Shrugging, he turned towards the sack of doughnuts and rifled through it until he found one he wanted. He grabbed another one for Suzie before tossing the bag at Tosh, who caught it even though her attention was on Jack.

"So what were you doing that you had to hide from us?" Suzie asked. While she was no longer overtly hostile, she was still suspicious of his actions.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jack said blithely as he herded Andy towards the lower level where the showers were. "Excuse us," he said. He passed through the door with Andy before anyone had a chance to say anything else.

Suzie was left glaring in his direction. "Liar!" She called out. They could hear his laughter drifting up the stairs as he directed Andy down to the lower washrooms.


	11. Chapter 11

Tosh looked thoughtfully at the doorway before turning her attention back to her computer. The question for her was whether he set up the loop before or after he passed by each camera. If the former, she wouldn't be able to find out what he was up to. If the latter, she would be able to find some trace of the erased file on the hard drive of the camera system. Now it was up to her to figure out if he was good to cover his tracks before the fact or had gotten distracted by something which necessitated a messier clean up that would leave a trail. She quickly devised a little digger program which would allow her to search the entire grid to see if anything had been modified overnight. Setting that off to run, she went to get a coffee. She had been so excited by her early morning revelation that she had entirely forgotten about eating, so now the smell of the coffee was making her hungry.

Andy said nothing as he allowed Jack to shepherd him down to the lower level to get cleaned up. He was just happy to have Jack there again. All of the panic from the night before had been washed away by the sound of his voice. He didn't care what Jack had been up to, he was just glad that he was there. He obediently let Jack bring him down to the staff showers.

"I think it's ruined," Jack said as he looked down at Andy's stained trousers. "But we can try and get the stains out if you want."

"It doesn't matter," Andy said. And to him at that moment, it didn't. He started stripping; half hoping that Jack would join him. Jack stood back with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched. Andy wasn't at all self conscious about getting naked in front of Jack. In fact, he reveled in it. What he didn't notice was that Jack was staring at him with a slight frown on his face as he assessed each of the scrapes and bruises that Andy had sustained during the chase the night before. And he was angry with himself, since it was supposed to have been a simple job and it obviously hadn't turned out to be the case. And he hadn't been there to help. He knew that the team had been working for months without his other self and could handle anything that came at them, so he had to work on his own anger at himself at having left them… left Andy… to fend by himself in a situation that had been more dangerous than he had anticipated. Intellectually, he knew that Andy was okay and that Owen had no doubt checked him out when they got back, but the guilt he already felt this morning was magnified by his view that he had once again neglected his team while pursuing his own interests.

Andy let the ruined clothing drop to the floor as he turned on a shower head and stood under it. The great thing about the Hub was that the water never took long to get to temperature and they never ran out of hot water. He reached out, grabbed the soap and lathered up his body before turning towards Jack. "Join me?"

Jack smiled. "Tempting, but not during work hours." In truth, now that he had found Ianto, Andy didn't really hold any allure to him. He ached with that knowledge, knowing that there was no good way to let the other man know that. And in fact, it was something he couldn't, since it would mess things up with his other self once he came back. Not that his being here wouldn't do that already. He leaned back against the far wall by the open doorway, feeling his head start to ache. It was a contrast to how he had woken up earlier that morning….

He had been woken up by Ianto making love to him. It wasn't the first time he had been woken that way and he drifted in an amazing haze of feeling, not thinking but just reacting to what the other man was doing. It was only when Ianto collapsed on top of him that he was brought to reality when he opened his eyes to see blond hair instead of the dark brown that he was familiar with. Ianto, for his part been unable to help himself where Jack had been concerned. He hadn't even thought about where he was, or why the bed was so comfortable, but had just gone with how he was feeling

Afterwards, he had pulled Ianto against his chest so they could rest again. The two men lay with their chests moving together as they panted after their exertions. He smiled as he thought back on what had happened between them.

Andy moved and broke Jack's reverie. "What?" He was aware that Andy had asked him something but he had been lost in thought.

"I know you don't want to talk about whatever it was that you did last night, but can you at least tell me whether it's something that's going to be a danger to the team?" Andy asked, his voice muffled as he stuck his head under the shower head.

"No, no danger," Jack said. Except to his heart, and he really couldn't tell this man that. "Let me get you a towel," he said, moving into the other room. He leaned against one of the sinks and bowed his head. He was messing this up big time for Andy. Turning on the faucet, he splashed some water onto his face and let it drip down into the sink again. Raising his head he stared at himself in the mirror. He was in an impossible situation and he wasn't sure what the answer was at the moment. Hearing the water turn off, he shut off the faucet and grabbed a towel. Rubbing it over his face, he took it into the next room and handed it to Andy so he could dry off. "Listen, are you okay? I need to get upstairs and check something."

"I'm fine, Jack," Andy said, turning as he toweled off. He flashed a smile at his boss. "Don't worry about me." Jack stared at him for a moment, remembering the last several nights together with this man and he couldn't help doing a mental contrast to the night before with Ianto. The experiences were like night and day for him and he closed his eyes for a moment. "Really, Jack. I'm okay," Andy said, misinterpreting his reaction.

"Okay then," Jack said as he turned away. He was feeling awful at the moment and couldn't face the other man. "I'll see you upstairs."

Jack took the stairs two at a time until he came back up into the main Hub area. Suzie was busy working in her shop, Toshiko was at her computer, typing away furiously and Owen was nowhere to be found. He stopped in the doorway and watched each of them for a moment. He desperately wanted them to all be safe, and watching them like this gave him a sense of pride as he saw them at their every day routines. All three of them were dead in his universe and he knew he was clutching at the past and that he couldn't continue here for very long. He ached with that knowledge. Shaking his head he tried to clear the thoughts. This wasn't conducive to getting anything done, so he took a deep breath and headed over to his office, only stopping briefly to pick up a cup of coffee and a doughnut before heading up the stairs. Toshiko glanced up as he passed her. He had a preoccupied look on his face and it wasn't the first time that she wondered what went on inside his head. She stared after him as he bit into the doughnut as he climbed the stairs. Looking down, she peered back upwards through her hair as he turned to close the door before sitting down at his desk. Jack was like one of those puzzles that she often itched to solve. But with him it was like trying to follow a mobius strip, since she often found herself turning in circles when she tried.

Jack sat down at his desk and sighed. It was only eight am and already the day had started off poorly. He leaned back and took a sip of his coffee, making a slight grimace at the acidic taste. Definitely not up to Ianto's standards he mused as he put it back down on the desk. Ianto. He stared across his office for a long moment. He wasn't sure what he was going to do next. Their encounter had been everything he had hoped for and more. A slow smile crept across his face as he remembered. No, the day had started out perfect; it was the aftermath that had gone downhill…

Jack laughed out loud as Ianto's stomach rumbled so loudly he felt the vibration against his own stomach. Ianto grinned down at the older man, looking a bit unrepentant. He felt amazingly relaxed with this man. It didn't make sense, but he wasn't going to question it.

"Hungry?" Jack asked. Ianto shrugged. Hunger was a constant companion, but if Jack was willing to offer another meal, he wasn't going to turn it down. He stretched on top of Jack, feeling rather sated for anything else at the moment. He enjoyed the way Jack ran his hands up and down his back and he leaned into the caress like a cat would. Jack smiled at him. "I think they have room service in this place, if you're interested."

"Sounds good to me," Ianto said. He rubbed himself against Jack, enjoying the rasping of their skin against one another. "I suppose that means getting up to check the menu?"

"Yeah, it would," Jack chuckled. He moved his hands so he could leverage Ianto off of him, much as he regretted the action. "How about you go find it for us?" Ianto slipped off the bed and padded barefoot over to the desk. As he picked up the hotel booklet, his eyes strayed to where he had dropped Jack's wallet the night before. It was still there, and he could see where some of the bills had spilled out after he had tossed it onto the desk. His stomach growled again and he looked down in amazement. Apparently it wanted regular food. He shook his head and sternly told himself that this wasn't going to be a regular occurrence so, he should get used to the lack of food. As he turned back to the bed he flipped through the book and found the room service menu.

Jack had his head pillowed by his hands and he was watching Ianto as he came back towards the bed. Ianto had an odd expression on his face and Jack was trying to place what he was feeling. When his stomach growled again and Ianto glared downwards, Jack stifled a chuckle.

"Here," Ianto said, as he climbed onto the bed and handed the book to Jack. He also reached for the bottle of water he had abandoned the night before and took a sip to quell his recalcitrant stomach. Jack suggested something and he nodded absently as he fiddled with the cap of his bottle. He was beginning to feel a bit awkward about the money portion of their transaction. Jack stretched across him and grabbed the phone, then put their order in. Kissing Ianto on the shoulder as he hung up, he slipped off the bed and went into the bathroom to use the toilet. Ianto watched him closely. Jack didn't bother to close the door and Ianto could see his reflection in the mirror on the wall. Against his gaze strayed towards the desk and he bit his lip. This was a business transaction, he reminded himself. Jack had agreed. It was his money, he told himself. Earned the night before. He felt a little hollow telling himself that.

Jack came out of the bathroom with a towel over his shoulder. He saw that Ianto was hunched on the bed, obviously deep in thought about something. He had a frown on his face and Jack wondered if he was having any regrets. He sighed. He hadn't thought about how this was going to work out in the morning. In fact, he hadn't been thinking since that moment when Ianto pressed against his leg in the pub. He had only reacted. He didn't regret any of it for a moment, but could see that it might lead to some awkward moments now. He sat down on the chair by the desk, not wanting to crowd Ianto.

Ianto looked up as the chair was dragged back over the carpet. Jack smiled at him reassuringly. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Good," Ianto said, looking back down at the water bottle. He had finished it earlier and was only playing with the empty plastic now.

"Want another one of those, or do you want to wait for the coffee?" Jack asked. Ianto glanced up and then towards the door. He shrugged and Jack felt like he was at a loss for words. If he was feeling awkward, he knew Ianto had to be feeling even more so. So he began to talk again. He talked about little things – the décor of the room, the weather outside, anything to fill the silence up until there was a knock on the door. Picking up the towel he had slung over the back, he stood up and wrapped it around his waist as he headed towards the door. Ianto stayed where he was, not looking when Jack answered the door and took the proffered tray. When the door closed and the lock was turned Ianto looked up to watch Jack carry the tray back into the room.

"Smells good," Jack said. Ianto nodded and Jack gestured for him to come over. He had Ianto take the armchair near the window and he had him pull it up to the edge of the desk. Pushing his wallet out of the way, he put the tray down and uncovered their plates. Ianto inhaled deeply as Jack poured some coffee into one of the cups.

"Love good coffee," Ianto said with a nod. He took it the way Jack expected, black. Jack hid a smile as he sat back down in the chair, remembering the times that Ianto complained about people who really didn't like coffee when they adulterated it with other substances. Although, Jack mused as he dug into his English breakfast, he hadn't complained about the occasional adulteration in the form of alcohol in his coffee. He glanced up at this new Ianto, still wondering what had made him so uncomfortable. He wracked his brain trying to think about what had happened when Ianto got up. He was fine until he came back to the bed. Jack looked around as Ianto began to eat and his eyes came to rest on his wallet. He looked up at Ianto who was concentrating on his meal and then back down again. Jack looked out the window, going over what he knew about the younger man.

"Looks like it's going to be a sunny day today," he commented. Ianto glanced up and looked over his shoulder and then nodded. Weather normally didn't mean much to him, other than whether it was going to shut down business for the night or mean he had to find a place to flop. During the day there was always the library. Already he was making plans in his head for books to check out that Jack had mentioned the evening before during dinner. He had a thirst for the written word and had been fascinated by some of the things that Jack had described.

"Ianto?" Jack asked, making the other man look up, the fork halfway to his mouth. "Are you happy?"

Ianto looked around the room and then back at Jack, though he avoided his eyes. "Yeah," he said with a shrug. He studiously looked down at his breakfast, wondering if now that they were in the light of day whether Jack was now going to show his true colors and try to evangelize him or something. He thought that would be very hypocritical after what they had done last night and this morning. "I guess."

Jack could see him shift uncomfortably and he reached out to touch the younger man's hand. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. If I have, I'm sorry. I like you, Ianto. I like you a lot, and I just want to make sure you're happy."

Ianto looked up at him and met his glance. Jack could see the self depreciating smile and almost cynical look in his eyes. "I guess."


	12. Chapter 12

"Stupid question, isn't it?" Jack asked with a sigh. He pushed his half eaten plate away and Ianto gave him a quizzical look. "Look, I'm not asking to convert you to anything, if that's what you're thinking. I just think that this has to be a hard way to live."

Again, Ianto shrugged. "I do okay," he said, trying not to sound defensive. He was feeling confused and wasn't sure where Jack was headed with this. Jack sat back and poured some more coffee. Drinking from the mug, his eyes went to his wallet again. Reaching across the desk, he pulled it towards him and opened it. That got Ianto's attention. Rifling through the cash he had in there, he came to a decision.

"Who says money can't buy happiness?" He asked softly. He pulled out all the money he had in there and put it on the table next to Ianto's plate. Ianto's eyes grew large as he saw the thickness of the stack. "I want you to have this," Jack said.

Ianto looked down at the stack of money and then back up at the man seated at the table. While he knew that some of this was owed to him, it was clearly more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. "Why?"

Jack shrugged. Why indeed? He wondered if he could tell the other man the truth yet. He really wanted to, but this Ianto was so skittish, he didn't want to scare him off right away. "Because you deserve a little bit of a break. I have it, so why not?"

Ianto looked down at the money and put his hand on it. He rifled through the stack and swallowed. Most of it was large bills. He looked up at Jack and then back down again. Who was this man that he walked the streets of Cardiff with this much money in his pocket? After a long moment he took only a portion of the money and pushed the rest back at Jack, surprising him. "I can't take this. We agreed to one fifty. That's good enough for me."

Jack stared at him for a long moment as Ianto raised his chin and looked back almost defiantly. "Why not?"

"I'm not here for charity," Ianto said firmly. He nodded in the direction of the money he had pushed back towards Jack. "That's charity."

"No it isn't," Jack said quietly. "It's a gift." Ianto shook his head and Jack recognized one of his Ianto's more obstinate looks. He sat back with a sigh, knowing he wasn't going to win this one. "You feel that strongly?"

"Yes," Ianto said. He had finished his food and reached over for the coffee pot, adroitly making his way past Jack's money to snag the handle and pull it closer. He poured them both fresh coffee and took a sip. It was good, and he was happy to enjoy that. But he had to draw the line somewhere. "I don't want something I didn't earn."

"Well, we have the room until noon," Jack said with a glance over at the bed. Ianto rolled his eyes and Jack burst out laughing at the younger man's expression. "Oh come on, I wasn't that bad, was I?"

"No," Ianto said. He looked up from the table with a twinkle in his eye. "Not that bad at all."

"Wow. Thank you, I think," Jack said as he shook his head ruefully. "Usually the praise is a lot more effusive." He was a bit nonplussed at Ianto's reaction, though at the same time he was pleased that Ianto had done what he did. It showed a strength of character that despite his circumstances, he still had some values that he wouldn't compromise on. When he put his cup back down he looked at the other man. "But come on, you can't say you've had better."

"Are you that insecure?" Ianto asked, shocking himself with his own question. There was something about Jack that goaded him to tease the other man. He barely knew him, yet he found himself bantering in his altogether with the other man, and enjoying himself while he did. "Surely a man such as you doesn't need that sort of confirmation from the likes of me."

"Why not?" Jack asked. "A guy likes to know he's good at something." Ianto snorted softly as he went back to finishing up the last of the food on his plate. "Well?"

"Wow," Ianto replied, amazed that Jack was still fishing for information. He put down his knife and fork and sat back. "Alright, you're right. I haven't had better." Jack smiled at him and pulled his own plate back, finding his appetite had returned now that they were back on some sort of more comfortable ground with one another. Ianto just shook his head, silently wondering about Jack's ego and how easily he was mollified by a few words. Though, Ianto thought to himself, it had been fantastic. He glanced towards the bed, thinking about Jack's comment of having the room until noon but immediately rejected the idea. No, anymore and he'd be looking like a mercenary. And at this point he was only taking the money to survive. He wasn't going to lead Jack to think that he wanted more sex just for the money. He sighed softly, not wanting Jack to notice. At this point he'd shag the other man for free, it had been that good. He gave a self depreciating smile, lost in thought.

Jack sat back with his cup and watched the thoughts flit across Ianto's expressive face. Unlike his own Ianto who had often hid behind a mask that showed nothing of how he felt or what he was thinking, this man kept it all on the surface, even when he didn't want to show how he felt. He had never learned those harsh lessons that Ianto had learned about holding everything inside and not showing the outside world how he felt. For all of his living on the streets, this man was essentially younger in many ways than the Ianto he had known. Perhaps it was Torchwood, Jack mused as he took another sip of his coffee. A secret organization would by its nature spawn employees who were also secretive in their own personal lives. And his Ianto had had a lot of secrets to deal with. At one point it was what had initially intrigued him. He had wanted to pull back the layers of subterfuge in an effort to reveal the true man beneath. If there was one thing he could be happy about it was that he had succeeded in that. He had known the true depths of the man called Ianto Jones, and it was those memories that he cherished now.

Ianto saw that Jack was lost in thought. He was looking straight at him, but it was like he didn't really see him. Ianto wondered what was going on inside the other man's head. He looked young, but his eyes seemed incredibly old, as if he had seen the world and all it had to offer and it had aged him. He fascinated Ianto. He wasn't like anyone he had met before and Ianto felt like a moth drawn to a flame. There was something about Jack that didn't seem on the up and up, but he found that he didn't care. He just wanted to be able to see him again.

"So, what now?" Jack asked, finally focusing fully back on Ianto. They had both finished eating and the coffee pot was empty. "I could ring for more coffee."

"No thank you," Ianto said. "I'm already sloshing about with what I've had." Jack smiled at his comment. He really didn't want any more himself, but was looking for reasons to hold Ianto here with him. He closed his eyes when the sun glinted off the windows opposite and shone directly into his face. Involuntarily he glanced at his watch to check the time.

Ianto saw that and shifted. "Right," he said as he threw his napkin onto the table. Leveraging himself up, he leaned over to give Jack a kiss. "I'll take my shower and be off. No doubt you have work to see to, somewhere."

"Yeah," Jack said with a sigh. Unconsciously he licked his lips and could taste the slight traces of coffee from Ianto. "Want some company?"

"Is that wise?" Ianto asked as he leaned closer to the other man. Jack lifted his face up and Ianto pushed closer. "We're out of condoms. You were a bit energetic last night."

"I was?" Jack asked, incredulous. Ianto only laughed and pushed off the arms of his chair as he meandered over to the bathroom. "Hey!" Ianto turned and looked over his shoulder, making Jack swallow at the look he saw on the other man's face. "We used up the shower gel, so what are you going to use to wash up?"

"I'll improvise," Ianto said with a wink as he went through the door. Jack could hear the rest of his comment drifting out to him. "I'm good at that."

"Yes, Ianto Jones, you certainly are," Jack said in a low voice to himself...

Jack shook himself out of his reverie as he heard the door alarms go off. He saw Owen coming back through with some bags in his arms and it made him focus on what he was doing, rather than what he had done. He logged into the computer system and did a quick scan of the night before, working his way backwards. He stopped when he saw Toshiko do something at her console shortly before he had arrived. Going to the internal CCTV camera footage that was focused on her screen he zoomed in the resolution until he could see what she was doing.

"Clever, my little Japanese flower, but you have a long way to go to outsmart me," he murmured with a smile. He saw that she had created a spider program to go out and search the city's CCTV network. While he wasn't a computer programmer, he knew the Torchwood mainframe unlike anyone else. After all, he had been the one to build it and integrate the sentient computer wetwear into the system. There wasn't anything she could do that he couldn't stop if he wanted to. Opening up a separate window he stopped for a moment and looked at the blinking cursor. She was clever, so he had to be careful. Grinning to himself, he began typing, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Though he didn't show it often, he could very well program anything on his own. And this was one of his fortes, which was to outsmart his own staff. He had been doing it for centuries, so he had had a lot of practice.

When Andy came upstairs with some coffee for the team, he carried a clean mug with a steaming French roast into Jack's office. Jack had a look of concentration on his face and he was typing away. Just as Andy was about to knock on the door to warn him Jack sat back with a satisfied smile on his face. He looked up and grinned as he got a whiff of the coffee that Andy was bringing in.

"Ah, my lifesaver!" He declared. He looked at distaste at the take away cup that he had only half drunk. "I was anticipating an ulcer if I drank anymore of this swill."

"Can't have that, sir," Andy said with a smile, happy that things seemed to be back to normal with Jack. He loved their banter when they were working. He satisfied a deep seated need within him to both serve and entice Jack. It was, after all, what had brought them together. As he put the steaming mug on Jack's desk he smiled.

"Good to see you smiling," Jack commented as he sat back in his chair and stretched. The springs protested vocally, but he didn't seem to notice. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks," Andy said with a nod. He perched himself on the corner of the desk, not noticing Jack's twitch at his familiar movement. "Nothing that a hot shower and a little paracetamol couldn't help. Go on, drink up."

Jack picked up the mug and drank, closing his eyes in appreciation over the rich taste. While Andy wasn't the master at gourmet coffee that Ianto had been, he did well enough with what he had. And that was a far sight better than what Jack had been drinking earlier. "Ah," he said as he smacked his lips. "I think I feel somewhat human again."

"Only somewhat?" Andy teased. It had been debated amongst the staff on several occasions just how human Jack was. Although Owen had done scans and he definitely showed up as human on those, they all suspected that there was more to the story that Jack wasn't telling them.

"One can only expect so much of perfection, right?" Jack said with a grin that turned into an outright laugh at the expression on Andy's face. Andy shook his head and twisted his torso to look at Jack's screen. There was a lot of text that looked like Tosh's screen when she was compiling something.

"Anything I can help with?" He asked. He wasn't going to ask Jack any questions. Maybe it was because he didn't want to know the answers, even if Jack was willing to share with him. He turned back to Jack who shook his head. "I didn't know you could program."

"Oh that? That's nothing," Jack said dismissively. "Just doing a little parameter search. It's not programming at all." He hit a series of keystrokes and the screen blanked briefly before returning with a search of artifacts in the database. "See? Just looking for something. I ran into some stuff last night and it reminded me of some pieces we had in storage. I was doing a parameter search to see if I could get any matches. Look like I was right," he said, pointing to the screen. Andy peered closely and nodded as he saw the designations.

"Want me to retrieve those?" He didn't recognize the allocations, which meant it was in the lower levels of the archives that he didn't normally go into. It would take some time to retrieve the stuff if that was what Jack wanted.

"No rush," Jack said blithely. "I just wanted confirmation that we did have some more of this stuff in storage. If we need to, we can get them later." He cleared the screen and the squiggling screensaver kicked in, obscuring the screen. "Now, tell me what you and Owen picked up last night," Jack said, changing the subject and effectively distracting Andy from what he had been doing.


	13. Chapter 13

The days began to blur together as Jack settled in more firmly into a routine. Thankfully, things were so busy with the rift that he and Andy didn't have any time for anything personal, and although he knew he was avoiding the issue, as long as he was physically about, Andy didn't seem to mind the fact that they didn't have time for any other sort of intimacy. He also settled into a routine with Ianto, disappearing at odd moments of the day and meeting up with the other man for breakfast or lunch. He didn't have time for anything else with him, but he found that he could be satisfied with just getting to know this other man and allowing Ianto to get comfortable with him. Ianto still wouldn't accept any money from him, but he would let Jack pay for meals, so that was something at least. Jack was still trying to figure out the best way to talk about what he wanted to do, but he hadn't been able to find a way to do so, yet.

The rest of the team went back into old habits from before Jack had left. Suzie was still watchful, but relieved that Jack didn't seem to be going anywhere. Toshiko after getting a negative from her spider program gave up on looking into what Jack had been doing. Andy wasn't upset, so she didn't think it was her place to dig any further. Owen was into his own thing and just totally oblivious to anything else going on.

One evening things were slow again and Jack was feeling the itch to see Ianto. His problem was that Andy was also hanging about and dropping hints about spending the night. Jack rested his chin on his hand as he thought about that. He really didn't want to hurt Andy. His glance drifted across his desk and finally rested on a report. Some of the paperwork was spilling out, and he found himself looking at the embossed crest of the royal family. A slow smile crept across his face. He had an idea.

When the rest of the team had kicked off for the night and Andy was cleaning up, he saw Jack working furiously on something. He frowned, wondering what it was that Jack was working on and whether he needed some sort of help. Making coffee as an excuse to visit the office, he tapped on the door before entering.

"Hi," he said, feeling a little tentative since it looked like Jack was so lost in concentration that he didn't want to disturb him. Jack looked up, his eyes a little out of focus until he shook himself.

"Hey," he responded. "Is that coffee I smell?" Andy smiled and nodded, walking around Jack's desk so he could drop it off for him. "Thank you."

"You seem busy this evening," Andy said. He saw piles of documents all over Jack's desk and several layers of windows on his display. Jack was obviously deep in something important, judging by some of the official looking seals and letterheads scattered about. He felt his earlier hopes of them having a quiet night together sink in the wake of the amount of stuff on Jack's desk.

"Yeah," Jack said as he gestured at the pile in front of him. "What I do for Queen and country," he said with a sigh. "Need to compile a presentation for Her Majesty and present it tomorrow in London." Andy blinked at the news.

"You're going to London?" He echoed, feeling a bit bereft at the news. Jack nodded and went back to what he was working on. "Do you need my help? Maybe I could go with you…" he suggested but trailed off as Jack shook his head.

"Wish you could, but I need to keep you here to watch out for the team," Jack said. "This is going to be a quick high level meeting. Just top brass sort of thing. I'm sorry, Andy," he said looking up and Andy could see the sincerity in his gaze. He was truly sorry for what he was saying. "But I can't have you along with me."

"Okay," Andy said quietly. "When are you leaving?"

"As soon as I finish this," Jack said with a nod of his chin towards the screen. Andy nodded again and said he'd go pack him an overnight bag. Jack closed his eyes as Andy climbed down to the bunker. He felt rotten for what he was doing, but he found that he really needed to get away from the Hub. He needed to be with Ianto. Needed to talk to him, and find out if the other man would be willing to travel with him back to his own time and universe. He knew he was on borrowed time here and eventually he was going to have to leave. He played at finishing up the paperwork as Andy came up with a duffel bag.

"You'll take the SUV, of course?" Andy asked. Jack shook his head.

"No, I need to be discreet," he said. "Can't advertise that I'm in London. I'll take a rental." Before Andy could say anything he spoke again. "Already have that set up, so don't worry about that."

Andy felt at a loss as he thought about what else he could do to assist Jack. "Is there anything else I can do?" Jack stopped what he was doing and sat back with a sigh.

"Go home, Andy. Take the night off and get some rest. I don't like the way that you've had to work lately, and you're looking a little drawn to me," he said, getting up and turning towards the other man. Andy looked at him steadily before shrugging. "You need a break."

"I don't want a break," Andy said. Unspoken between them was the rest of the sentence, which was 'I only want to be with you.' Jack stifled a sigh, feeling like a heel. Taking a deep breath he moved over to the other man and wrapped his arms around Andy in a hug. Andy leaned into him and sighed, relaxing into the contact.

"I know, Andy. I know that the last couple of weeks haven't given us a lot of time together. I'm sorry," Jack said, meaning what he said. He was truly sorry for what he was doing, though he knew he wouldn't stop doing it. "But take a break and relax, okay?" Andy nodded and rested his cheek against Jack's shoulder for a moment before pulling back and rubbing it against his face. Jack squeezed him tightly, not wanting Andy to see his face until he could school the expression. When he finally pulled back, Jack gave him a nod. "Go home."

"Okay. You'll be home tomorrow?" Andy asked, his eyes searching Jack's. Jack nodded. Home. Torchwood was the closest thing he'd ever have to a home these days. "Okay, maybe we can do something then."

"Yeah," Jack said, his gaze softening. "Let's plan on dinner or something. Go out on a date," he suggested. Andy brightened up at his words and he smiled. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against the ex-PC. "Goodnight, Andy." When he pulled back, Andy had his eyes closed and the look on his face pulled on Jack's heart.

"Goodnight, Jack." Andy smiled at the man he loved and reached up to brush his hair back. "I'll set the alarms to notify Suzie and myself if something comes up tonight. Safe trip."

"Thanks," Jack said, feeling a lump form in his throat. He watched as Andy left the office, finished picking up and shut down the Hub for the night. When he heard the cog wheel door roll shut he sat down heavily in his chair and rested his head in his hands. Sighing, he sat and stared at the computer monitor. He could see his reflection in the display, but he avoided looking himself in the eye. He didn't want to have to face himself at the moment. Looking down, he decided to finish the report. He hadn't lied about that, he was working on something for the Queen, but it wasn't something he had to deliver immediately. He finished that off and saved it before cleaning up the stuff scattered around the desk. Standing, he leaned on the desk for a moment, his head bowed. Then he pushed off the edge and climbed downstairs to pick up the bag that Andy had packed for him, stopping to grab some other supplies that Andy wouldn't have thought to pack. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he grabbed a folder off his desk and his coat before heading out the door. He went out the invisible lift and walked across the Plass, heading off into the night. Earlier in the evening he had run a program to stagger the CCTV recordings, so he activated that with his vortex manipulator after picking up the rental car and driving off in the direction of London.

He circled the city and triggered his program, making sure that there was no trace of his car as he went to the magic roundabout to find Ianto. He wasn't going to tell the young man not to work, and the two of them had come to an understanding. He chuckled softly to himself. It seemed that he had to rework some of his 21st century thinking back into a 51st century mindset where fidelity and monogamy weren't an issue. He came up to the roundabout and circled around, looking for Ianto. He didn't see him on the first circuit, but knew he would probably be there. He finally pulled up on East Tyndall Street where they had first met and got out. Leaning against the car, he crossed his arms and waited. It didn't take long until another man broke away from a group of youths and angled in his direction. Jack smiled.

"Hey," Ianto said as he walked up to where Jack was. "Is that your car?"

Jack looked down at the little sports car. "Sorta," he said. "Want to run away with me?" He asked with a grin. Ianto looked from the car to Jack and back again. He saw something in the back seat and he leaned against the car, staring over the top at Jack.

"What do you have in mind?" Ianto asked. It had been a slow night and seeing Jack had brightened his evening considerably.

"A little jaunt out of the city, overnight," Jack said. "Interested?"

"Well, it will cost you," Ianto said, his reply more of a joke these days than anything else. The idea of running off with Jack sounded good. He was being casual about it though, not wanting Jack to know how interested he was. He glanced over at the roundabout and saw some of his other acquaintances milling about. Some of them had already commented about his 'regular,' and he knew that they would have already been in the car and away by this point. But he also knew Jack well enough now to know he liked a little foreplay. So he was willing to provide it.

"Money's not a problem," Jack said with a smile, his eyes glinting in the light of the streetlamp. "Just name it."

"Hmmmm," Ianto mused as he leaned against the car, pretending to think. He pushed off and walked around to the side where Jack stood. Closing in on the other man he pressed himself up against Jack. "How long are we talking about?"

"Now until tomorrow afternoon," Jack said. "That is, if you think you're up for it." Ianto laughed softly and deliberately rubbed himself against Jack's hip.

"What do you think?" He whispered before leaning in for a kiss. Jack trembled and they heard the catcalls from across the roadway. Ianto pulled back and grinned. "The usual."

"No, this is longer than that," Jack said with a nod. "Don't undercharge."

"Who's the one negotiating rates here?" Ianto asked softly as he reached up a hand and stroked Jack's neck. "Aren't you supposed to talk me down rather than raise the price?" Jack grinned.

"You are so worth it," he told the man in front of him as he wrapped an arm around Ianto's waist to hold him close. "I've got all the supplies we'll need."

"Oh?" Ianto arched one eyebrow and Jack's breath hitched at the smoky look he was given. "Planning a nonstop evening, are we?"

"Evening into morning," Jack said with a smile. "Ready to go?" Ianto nodded and gave him another kiss, opening his mouth and allowing Jack to explore as they stroked their tongues against one another. They got lost in the moment, pushing and thrusting against one another and this generated another set of catcalls from the other rent boys and girls. Smiling, he pulled away from Jack, deliberately letting his fingers trail from the other man's neck down his front before moving to the passenger side of the car. Jack watched him as he walked before opening his own door and getting back inside.

He glanced across to the roundabout and grinned. He loved giving a show, and Ianto had certainly set the stage for this one. With one last glance at the traffic cameras he got into the driver's seat and smiled at Ianto. "Let's get going," he said as he shifted the gear into drive. Ianto nodded and sat back, trying not to look too impressed with the sports car he was in. Jack certainly had taste and a lot of money to throw about, he mused to himself. Once Jack pulled out onto the road Ianto shifted so he could watch him. Jack seemed to be a bit of a daredevil where driving was concerned. Not that Ianto was too worried about it. Jack looked like he was in command and knew what he was doing. He grinned across at the other man as Jack glanced over and matched his smile. He didn't question where they were going. This was Jack's show tonight.


	14. Chapter 14

Jack took a deep breath and let it out. He glanced down at his vortex manipulator and saw that it was still tripping the camera recordings. The program was rather simple, but it allowed him to drive without worrying about being tracked. The signal from his vortex manipulator was tied into the Torchwood mainframe, which was tracking him much like a sat-nav would. As he drove it located the cameras in line and set them to a record loop for the time it took him to pass. Once they were out of the city, he didn't have to worry about it. The program was designed to hide itself, and unless Toshiko knew where to look, she wouldn't find it. There was no reason for her to look, so he contented himself with the knowledge that she wouldn't catch onto his deception. He crossed his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought that, and hoped that everything went off as planned.

He didn't go too far outside the city, but ended up on a dirt road in the country. Ianto looked about as they drove, but there really wasn't much to see, as there were no streetlights. Jack was playing old fashioned big band music on the stereo system and Ianto felt his foot tapping along with it. It seemed to fit him, Ianto thought. Jack interested him. He didn't seem the type that needed to buy someone, so the fact that he was actively pursuing him was intriguing. He had been trying to puzzle it out for a while now, but hadn't come up with a reason why Jack was interested in him. While they talked about everything under the sun when they were together, they never talked about personal stuff that exposed themselves to one another. Ianto was fine with that as he didn't want to delve into his own past or explain it to someone else. But the more he got to know Jack, the more he wanted to know about him.

Jack had to pay close attention as the dirt road wasn't in the best of shape. He had been out to the country house earlier in the week and had readied it, wanting to set this up ahead of time, but needing to do it when the rest of his team wasn't paying attention. This was a bit of Torchwood property that didn't show up on the rolls of holdings. Mainly because it belonged to him personally and had been his for over a century. He had quietly bought the surrounding land over the years to give himself a place to escape to when he needed to.

"Wow, we are out in the hinterlands, aren't we?" Ianto commented and Jack chuckled as they bottomed out briefly. "So much for your car."

"It's a rental," Jack said with a grin as he pulled up to the cottage. He touched something on his vortex manipulator and a light came on. Ianto assumed it was just a proximity light sensing the movement of the car. At least they wouldn't have to stumble in the dark. He got out of the car and looked around. He knew he should be worried about being out in the country alone with Jack, but for some reason he wasn't. He watched as Jack pulled his duffel bag out of the back seat and led the way up the walk to the door. He turned to Ianto as he inserted his key in the lock. Ianto stood back and let him enter first. Once he had the lights on, he gestured for Ianto to come in.

"This is your place?" Ianto asked as he looked around. They were in a kitchen which looked like it had stepped out of a television show. The appliances were rather old fashioned and there was a small table that only two people could sit at. But it looked clean.

"Yeah, been in the family forever," Jack said as he dropped the bag down on a chair. He watched as Ianto moved about, poking around. It was never a place that his own Ianto had been to – they had never had the need to get away to a place like this before, so it was something new for him and not an echo of a past memory. Jack was happy about that, since sometimes he felt he was seeing ghosts of past experiences that were coloring what he was doing now. "Aren't you a bit worried about being out here alone with me?" He asked, curious.

Ianto looked up from where he had poked his head into the fridge. "Nope," he said as he closed the door. "If you wanted to off me in some kinky sex situation I don't think you'd come all the way out here to do it." Jack looked startled for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"It had never occurred to me," he said as he finally got control of his mirth. He wondered what went through the other man's head, but eventually came to the conclusion that with someone else it might have been a real possibility. "But thanks for the vote of confidence," he said with a grin as he leaned a hip against the doorway leading into the parlor.

"You're welcome," Ianto said. "Of course I don't have much in the way of spare clothing, so you'll have to live with me as I am." He stalked across the room to where Jack was standing. "So, do I get the rest of the tour?" Jack stood aside and stepped into the other room, leaning to his left to turn on a table lamp as he motioned for Ianto to continue his wanderings.

Ianto stepped into the room which had a decidedly male feeling to it. The furniture was dark and there were military photos on the walls. He gave it a cursory glance before noticing a hallway leading off the other side. "Nice," he commented.

Jack had been watching him, his arms crossed over his chest. "Thanks. Hungry? I have food here, so could make us something." Ianto shrugged. It seemed that whenever he was with Jack all the other man wanted to do at first was to feed him. His jeans were beginning to feel tight with all of the regular meals he was getting.

"I'm okay," he said. He turned away to hide a smile. He didn't think there would have ever been a time when he would have turned down a meal. Funny how that could change, he mused to himself. He turned back towards Jack and moved to where he was standing. "I'm hungry for something else," he said in a low voice as he leaned into Jack. He heard the other man's breath hitch in reaction.

"Oh?" Jack asked, trying to stay nonchalant but he wasn't having a lot of success with it. "What do you have in mind?" Ianto moved even closer and pressed him against the wall.

"Anything and everything," Ianto said as he rubbed himself up against Jack's body. Jack involuntarily closed his eyes and Ianto reveled at the power he seemed to have over the other man. He pulled back slightly and held out his hand. Jack pulled his wallet out and placed it in Ianto's hand. He could feel that there was more than enough weight for his usual fee, so he leaned in to give Jack a kiss before dropping it on the end table next to the sofa. By this point their interplay was obligatory, and once he had gotten it out of the way he wrapped himself around Jack, luxuriating in the feeling of Jack's hands combing through his hair and rubbing his skin as he pushed his hand up under Ianto's shirt. "So where do you want me?"

Jack almost groaned at the question. This man had an ability like no other to turn him on with just a glance and a well placed smile. He hooked his fingers into Ianto's belt loops and pulled him tight against his hips. "Anywhere and everywhere," he murmured against the other man's lips. He let Ianto take control, opening his mouth to the other man in a wet and sloppy kiss. He would sell his soul for this man.

Jack moaned. All thoughts of Torchwood, his team and even the world outside the room narrowed down to what was going on with the man in front of him in this small room.

Ianto enjoyed being with Jack. The man made his blood boil like none other. And he was really enjoying their sparring when they were together. Even beyond the sex, this man intrigued him. He knew he was in dangerous territory, but at this point he found he didn't care. So he started to move against Jack, using what little leverage he could to entice the man further.

As they began to make love, Ianto shut down all the things he thought about when he wasn't with Jack. The time wasn't for thinking, but for doing….

Several hours later at the Hub a computer chimed. There was no one to hear it, but that didn't matter. Toshiko Sato didn't need to be sat at her computer to access it. She was at her kitchen counter putting together a snack before sitting down to watch a movie when her PDA vibrated. Putting down the knife she was using, she picked it up. Typing in the access code, she looked at the message that was displayed there. She frowned thoughtfully. One of her many small spider programs had sent back a message. She sat back on the stood by the counter and considered the information. Tapping her fingernail against the counter, she turned towards her kitchen table. Her laptop was set up on it, but she had promised herself she was leaving it off tonight and was just going to enjoy a quiet non-work related night at home. She glanced back down at the blinking message on the PDA. No, she couldn't just leave it. She never could. That was her problem.

Sighing, she headed over to her computer to boot it up and to look further into what her program had found for her….

Andy sat at a bar in the other end of town wondering just what it was he was doing. He was feeling at loose ends so had decided to go to one of his old haunts from when he was a PC. He met up with some of his former mates, but it was obvious that his experiences with Torchwood had separated him from them in more ways than just the obvious ones. His old partner Gwen was partying at a pool table with some of her workmates and they were making right prats out of themselves. They were acting pretty juvenile and he wondered if he was ever like that when he was a PC. He sipped his drink and brooded. Torchwood had changed him. Jack had changed him. He sighed. Jack. At times he felt things were better than ever and others he felt like he really didn't know the other man at all. He wished he had gone to London with Jack despite what his boss had said. He thought about just heading out and surprising Jack. He should be able to find out where Jack was staying. Maybe they could stay in London later and have a little fun. He stared at himself in the mirror. Jack. The man was trying to protect him, and he didn't know why. Didn't Jack trust him? Didn't he know he was a fully fledged member of the team now? Didn't he want him along?

Staring at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, he came to a decision. He dumped some money on the top of the bar and stood up. Without a glance back at his former team mates who he had been as close to as siblings one upon a time, he walked out of the pub and didn't look back.

"Come on, Suzie," Owen said as he wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders and hugged her. "Let's go to bed." Suzie was staring intently at her computer display. She had been going through all of the in house and external CCTV footage, tracing Jack's whereabouts. "This is getting you nowhere."

"There's something not right here," she muttered. "I can feel it." Once again, she brought up the scan for the first day that Jack came back and played it. The cameras had caught him materializing on the Plass in a burst of white light. Jack had stumbled a few steps before regaining his balance. He looked around like he was trying to identify where he was, and she had zoomed in the footage to examine his expression. It had seemed like he was surprised to be in Cardiff. Surprised to be where he was. And it made her wonder where he had been and where exactly he thought he had been going. She frowned in concentration as she peered closer at the screen.

Owen stared over her shoulder for a long moment. It was like she was possessed, trying to find something wrong. Owen had just accepted that Jack was back and that things were as normal as they were ever going to get at Torchwood. He adored Suzie, but sometimes she was a bit of a fanatic. He decided to try and distract her by leaning down and trailing kisses along her shoulder and neck and up to her ear. He could tell she was responding because her nipples hardened under his hands where he was caressing her breasts. Suzie was fantastic in bed; he had never had anyone like her before. When he had fallen for her it had been hook, line and sinker. He had never looked any other woman since.

"Come to bed. Whatever it is will still be there for you to find, if it exists. Please, baby," he pleaded. She leaned back with a sigh and he took that as a response, letting his hand move down and slide under her shirt. "I need you."

Suzie closed her eyes and leaned back, enjoying Owen's hands on her. He had one hell of an imagination and he was quite inventive in the bedroom. And he was usually able to bring her back from the brink of madness when she got too close to the edge. She sighed as he touched her, his lips creating a fiery trail over her skin. Her breathing quickened in response to what he was doing.

"Yeah, let's go to bed," she said with a nod. Owen urged her up, slowly undressing her as he led the way to their bedroom. They left everything as it was, Owen not wanting to stop them from getting into bed as soon as possible. Soon the room was empty, the lights left on and a frozen image of Jack Harkness on the computer screen that Suzie had been scanning only moments before…


	15. Chapter 15

"Damn, you're good," Ianto panted as he collapsed back down on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling, seeing the faint traces of water marks where there had once been leaks. He could hear Jack breathing heavily at his side and a glance showed the steady rise and fall of his chest as he fought to control himself after their shagging session. It was their second one that evening, this time with Jack taking the lead by carrying Ianto into the bedroom after their first on the floor of the living room. Ianto hadn't really noticed the décor, but as he looked around now he thought about what Jack had told him about the place. He said it had been in his family for a long time, but this room didn't seem like the sort of place that a family would have built. For one thing the only piece of furniture was the bed. Granted, it was a large one, but there were no dressers or chests of drawers or anything else. Just the bed. Good for a bachelor, but not so good for a family if they used to live there. He saw a door he presumed to be a closet in one wall and no windows. Convenient if you wanted to hide away from the world, he mused to himself. He looked back over at Jack.

Jack had rolled over and was watching him. Ianto had a lively face and one could watch the thoughts flit across it as he thought. "What?" He asked now that he had his breath back.

"You said this place had been in your family a while," Ianto said. Jack nodded. "Seems like more of a hideout than a place to raise a family." Jack frowned and looked around. "There's a decided lack of furniture," Ianto pointed out.

Jack rolled over so that he could throw his leg over Ianto. "It has the most important piece of furniture that matters," he said with a grin. Ianto reached up to support Jack as he settled down on top of the younger man.

"True," Ianto mused. "And I'm never one to turn down a clean place and a warm bed."

"Or a willing partner?" Jack asked with a grin. Ianto smiled up at him. Jack stared down at him, examining the face he knew as well as his own. He had even gotten used to the bleached blond hair. As he stared into Ianto's eyes he thought about what it was he wanted to do. Well, besides shag the hell out of one another, he thought to himself. He had thought long and hard about telling Ianto the truth this evening. He needed to tell him. Needed to find out if Ianto would come back with him. Needed to hear the word "yes." But he was afraid of not getting the answer he wanted to hear.

Ianto noticed that Jack had gotten serious as he looked down at him. He could never figure what was going on in the other man's mind. Jack was a puzzle. He often said contradictory things, or occasionally some tall tale that made Ianto wonder if anything he said was the truth at all. Usually he would be cavalier and jovial, but there were times, usually after they had just had sex where Jack seemed to be on the brink of telling him what he really thought and felt. Ianto couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he felt that there was something that Jack wasn't telling him.

"Hungry?" Jack asked. Ianto rolled his eyes. Somehow, Jack always brought things back to food.

"If I keep on eating the way you want me to, you're going to have to buy me new clothes because I'm going to eat my way out of the ones I have," Ianto told him. Jack chuckled and rubbed the palm of his hand against Ianto's side.

"I don't know, you're still pretty thin," he said as a way of a diagnosis. "I can practically count the ribs here."

"I'm happy with the way I am," Ianto said. Being a little underweight actually was a help in his business. It gave him a waif-like image that appealed to those men who liked younger boys. And he wasn't that young anymore, but he could pass for being younger when he tried. "And no, I'm not hungry. But feel free to get something if you are."

"I am feeling a bit peckish," Jack admitted. He had forgotten to eat earlier as he had been so caught up in what he had been doing. And his activities with Ianto had made him hungry. "Join me?"

"I'll have a drink," Ianto allowed as Jack pushed off of him after giving him a kiss. "Go get yourself something to eat," he said. He watched as Jack scrambled off the bed before scooting to the edge and following after him. Jack walked through the dark parlor to the kitchen where the light was still on from when they had come in. His duffel bag was on the floor where Jack had put it when looking for more lube earlier. Ianto grinned. Jack had certainly come prepared. He thought there were more toys and stuff in there than there was a change of clothes. Ianto crouched down and poked through it, but it was the usual things he had seen before. He found himself curious about the other man. He didn't know much about Jack at all.

He could hear the sizzle of bacon as Jack started cooking. He replied when Jack asked him if he wanted coffee, and sat on the sofa. He was still trying to figure the other man out. Find out what made him tick. What motivated him to pick up a rent boy when he could do so much better. Ianto had asked him before when they had gone out for their lunches, but Jack had always managed to brush him off. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it. Ianto leaned back against the back of the sofa, his mind still on Jack. He looked around the room. It definitely had Jack's style – the military photos, planes, that sort of thing. He stretched, feeling muscles pop after their evening activities. He dropped his arms and winced as his hand hit the end table before knocking Jack's wallet off the top. It fell open and spilled the contents on the floor.

Swearing softly, Ianto got up and knelt down to pick up the stuff that had been scattered. He shook his head as he picked up the wad of cash that Jack had stuffed in there. Only Jack would walk around Cardiff with more cash than most of the roundabout probably collectively saw in a year. Ianto opened the wallet and put it back in, tucking it in more securely before looking back down at the floor. There were receipts and pieces of paper scattered about and he picked them up one by one. A couple of them were thicker paper and when he turned them over, he realized they were photos. Curious, he moved back onto the sofa and held them under the lamp, wondering about people that Jack knew.

One photograph was of a dark haired woman who was smiling into the camera. It looked to be taken down by the Bay, though Ianto couldn't place where, because it seemed really high up. Maybe a balcony or something. The wind was whipping her hair as she smiled. Ianto stared at her. She had the most gorgeous eyes. He wondered who she was. The next one was of two people at an arcade or something. They were laughing into the camera, a Japanese woman and some bloke who really didn't look like Jack's type. He shrugged and went onto the next one. It was folded in half so that it would fit into the wallet. Ianto opened it up and saw that it was a group photo. The same people were in it, all with their arms around one another. He peered at the new face and dropped the picture.

"Sure you don't want eggs? I can make something up if you want," Jack called. Ianto didn't respond at first. He was frozen in shock. "Ianto?"

"No!" He finally called out, not wanting Jack to come into the room. "Nothing!"

"Your loss," Jack said happily. He turned over the bacon and started making coffee to drink. In the other room, Ianto crouched down and picked up the photograph he had dropped. He brought it back under the light and peered at the people in the picture. To the left was the gal with the dark hair. Next to her was the odd looking bloke, then the Japanese girl. It was the person next to them that had given him the shock. It was a man in a suit. A man with his face. And it wasn't him.

He sat there staring at the people in the photograph. The man who could be his double had his arm around the Japanese woman and his head was against her in what was definitely an affectionate pose. He had no clue who that woman was. And he had never worn a suit in his life.

Jack was just about finished cooking when Ianto came through the doorway. "Coffee's almost ready," he said, not looking up. When he didn't get a reply he looked up and stopped when he saw the expression on the other man's face. "What is it?" Ianto was looking paler than normal and he had an odd expression on his face.

Ianto stared at the man in the kitchen for a long moment before replying. "You know, I was trying to figure it out."

"What out?" Jack said as he turned away from the stove. Something was wrong, and he didn't know what it was.

"Why me," Ianto said. He had his arms crossed over his body, almost protectively. "Why pick me up? I've been wondering that for a couple of weeks now. You come out of nowhere and chat me up. Take me out. Pay me more money than I would ever see from a normal john. But I don't question it because hey, you want to spend your money like that for a quick roll or two, who am I to argue? But I still wonder. Because you can't help but wonder." He stepped into the room and held something out in Jack's direction. "This fell out of your wallet."

Jack saw the creased photograph and knew immediately why Ianto was reacting the way he was. He put down the spatula and sighed. "I believe I owe you an explanation."

"Yeah," Ianto said. He put the photograph on the counter and leaned against it, his body posture definitely defensive. "I think you do. Who is he?"

Jack turned off the burners of the stove and turned back towards Ianto. "Please, sit down. I was planning on talking to you tonight, anyhow. Might as well be now." He had lost his appetite, but he did use the coffee as an excuse to turn away and pour two cups. He could hear the scrape of a chair as Ianto took a seat. Turning back, Jack brought the two mugs over to the table and put one in front of Ianto. Then he sat down in the opposite chair. Ianto didn't touch the coffee in front of him. Jack turned the mug around in a circle as he tried to find a way to begin. This wasn't going the way he had thought it would. He sighed.

"His name was Ianto Jones," Jack said. He could hear the quick intake of breath from the man across from him. "I'm not from around here," Jack continued, plunging onwards.

"I can tell that from the accent," Ianto said dryly. He was still reeling with the fact that Jack had identified the man in the photograph with his surname. But he was trying to retain that veneer of being relaxed and nonchalant as he waited for Jack's explanation.

"No, I mean I'm really not from around here," Jack said, glancing up briefly at the blond man in front of him. "I… damn, there's no real good way to say this. So here goes," he said. He picked up his coffee and took a fortifying sip of the dark brew. It wasn't exactly the kind of liquid courage he would have wanted but it was probably the most appropriate. "My name is Jack Harkness. At least, that's the name those people," he nodded his chin in the direction of the photograph that lay on the table between them, "knew me by. I'm not from Cardiff. Not from planet Earth, and where I come from, I ran an organization that deals with protecting the Earth, as much as we could from alien invasions and stuff that washes up around here."

Ianto sat there and stared at him. Jack was looking at him in the eye when he was speaking, trying to show the sincerity of what he was saying. He wasn't sure what to think about Jack's revelation. On one hand he immediately thought him a nutter. On the other, there had to be an explanation for that photograph. "So where are you from?"

"Originally?" Jack asked and sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh what the heck? Originally I was born in the 51st century on a very tiny planet in a galaxy you wouldn't be able to pronounce in an area we called the Boeshane Peninsula. I left my home after we were invaded by alien attackers to join the war against them and afterwards eventually joined a group known as the Time Agency. We actually policed people who went through time causing trouble. Eventually, I left there after a bit of trouble that would take too long to go into here and became a conman. Conned my way in and out of trouble for quite a while until I met a man who set me back on the path towards being able to respect myself."

"Him," Ianto said with a nod of his chin towards the photograph. Jack laughed.

"No, not him. He came much later," Jack said. He took another sip of his coffee before continuing. He then went onto explain meeting the Doctor and what a Time Lord was and what their place was in the universe before going into how he got stranded on Earth. He skipped over quite a bit in the aid of expediency before getting to the meat of the matter. He explained Torchwood and what they did, the rift, and the team that routinely saved the people of Cardiff and beyond from certain death time and again. He could see the skepticism on Ianto's face as he explained everything. "Seems pretty fantastic, doesn't it?"

"In a word, yeah." Ianto said. He sat back and stared at Jack. "You really believe everything you've told me, don't you?" At this point he was convinced that Jack was a nutter. But it still didn't explain the man in the photograph that was his double.

"Yeah, because I've lived it," Jack said. "Kind of hard not to believe it happened."

"So what about him?" Ianto asked, indicating the photograph. "Who are these people?"

"Everything I've told you is true. The one part I haven't told you is that it didn't exactly happen here," Jack said. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table as he stared earnestly at Ianto. "All of this happened in an alternate reality."

Ianto stared at Jack, not knowing what to say. It was obvious that Jack believed what he was saying. "Okay, say I buy what you're saying. What are you doing here?"

Jack swallowed. "The people in that photograph. All but Gwen – she's the one on the left... they're all dead. Killed in the line of duty, saving the world and protecting the people of Cardiff." He stared at the photograph. "And their deaths are my fault."

"What about him?" Ianto asked. Jack knew who he meant.

"Ianto kept me sane," Jack said. "He pulled me back from the precipice more times than I could count. He showed me that I was wrong sometimes, but also pointed out the times when I was right. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself."

"And he's dead," Ianto said. Jack nodded. "How?"

"By following me into the fire," Jack said. "We had a confrontation with an alien menace and it killed him." He paused to swallow, not noticing the tears that started to trail down his cheeks. He was staring at the photograph, seeing those smiling faces that would smile no more. At least, not in his reality. It made his heart ache. "He was in my arms when he…" his throat closed up. He couldn't say anymore.

Ianto stared at the man before him. Jack believed what he had said. He knew those people, whoever they were. Including the man who was a mirror image of himself before he had dyed his hair. He frowned, trying to figure out what exactly it was Jack was here for. He thought about the things that Jack had said. What if it were all true? What if he did come from another place and time, where his reality was different? If so, why come here?

"So why are you here?" He finally asked. Jack's shoulders twitched as he was startled back to the present. He looked up into the face of the man opposite it. Why indeed?

"Because I…" Jack paused, trying to find the words and then just decided to blurt it all out. "Because I was looking for you."

"Me?" Ianto said. Involuntarily his eyes looked down at the photograph between them. "You're looking for a replacement." Suddenly, he believed Jack's story. "Someone to replace the Ianto you lost." He felt bile in the back of his throat at the thought.

"No," Jack said, with a shake of his head. "I was looking for…." He looked up and met Ianto's eyes. They were wary, full of distrust and Jack knew how bad it must look to him right now. "Yes."

Ianto sat still for another moment before pushing back his chair. He turned and left the room. Stopping inside the parlor, he located his clothes. He was shaking, his hands trembling as he pulled his jeans up. It took him three tries to get his zipper pulled up and the top buttoned. He heard Jack step into the room behind him.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "I'm not explaining it well."

"No, you've done just fine," Ianto said. Thoughts were whirling about in his head as he searched for his shirt. He found it draped over the back of the armchair on the other side of the room. Pulling the football shirt over his head, he felt a certain measure of protection by having his clothes on. He leaned on the back of the chair and took a deep breath. "Why?" He didn't turn to face Jack. He didn't want to look at him at the moment.

"When Ian… when he died…" Jack swallowed. "Something broke inside. It wasn't until I lost him that I realized just how much I needed him. It's why I never tried to get close to my team. People get hurt. People die and I get left behind. I had to do some things I couldn't stop; amongst them I killed a small child. A blood relative." He paused for a moment, the pain still as deep as it had been before. He hadn't dared find Alice or Steven in this reality. "I had to sacrifice him to save the rest of the children of the world."

"That still doesn't tell me why you're here, looking for me," Ianto said. He didn't turn around. It was actually making it easier for Jack.

"When it was all over, I ran. Ran so far and as fast I could. But I couldn't run from what had happened, and what I had done. So when I could, I ran to the stars. I kept on running. But everywhere I looked, I saw the past. I saw the ones I had lost. And someone reminded me of the fact that you can't run forever. And then she gave me hope by telling me that if I tried, I could find what my heart desired again. I could find Ianto… I could find you." He knew he was crying again. He was doing it all wrong, but he didn't know how else to explain what had happened to the man before him. "Yes, your name is Ianto Jones and yes you look like the man I loved. But you're different. You're your own person. You're not an echo of the man I knew. And it's you I think of when I see you. Not him."

That finally made Ianto turn around. He stared at Jack for a moment before responding. "I don't believe you." Jack didn't say anything and waited for him to continue. "How can you look at me and not see him? And what makes you think that you could ever find a replacement for him? He wouldn't want you to replace him with a carbon copy." Jack looked down. No, Ianto wouldn't want to be replaced with another version of himself. He would have told him to move on. Find someone new. But he just couldn't. Ianto let out a harsh laugh. "Well, that explains the money." He turned and looked for his trainers which he had kicked off somewhere.

He stopped after picking up the first one. "What was it that you wanted? Just the sex? Or were you looking for someone you could mould into a suit to be the man you lost?" He turned and looked at Jack, trying to figure out the answer to the puzzle. "I can tell you right now that it isn't going to be me."

"Ianto, please," Jack said in a quiet voice. He knew that the younger man was upset. Knew that he was hurt, and he wished that he could have approached this in another way than having Ianto find the photographs in his wallet. He hadn't thought that would happen. When the other man found his second trainer and sat down to put it on, he decided to try one more time. "I could give you a better life, you know."

"What, being your yes man and wearing a suit, pretending to be someone else?" Ianto asked. He didn't look up from where he was tying his trainer. "No thanks."

"Don't you want to hear me out?" Jack asked. Ianto just shook his head. Jack frowned. "So you'd rather be living on the streets, selling your body for a few quid and not knowing what the future will be?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Ianto said with a nod. He stood up and stamped his feet down into his trainers. "At least it's something I can be honest about." He looked at Jack in the eye. "I know you paid for an overnight, but I can't do this. I'd like to go back now."

"Yeah, okay," Jack said as he looked away. Shoulders bowed in defeat, he turned to gather up his scattered clothing. "I'll be a moment," he said. He turned and went into the bedroom, unable to face the angry young man in the parlor. Sitting on the bed he closed his eyes, feeling them burn behind his lids. This had not gone at all the way he planned.

Ianto paced the other room, itching to be gone. He silently cursed the fact that they were out in the middle of the country. Otherwise he would have just walked out right then and there. The thought of sitting next to Jack in that sports car was excruciating. He didn't want to be near the other man. He stared into the kitchen and the abandoned food that Jack had been cooking. He went in and started to clean up. He didn't want anything to delay them once Jack was ready. He stared down at the mess in the pan and just tossed it in the bin with a shake of his head. Never thought he'd be throwing food away. Tossing the pan in the sink he washed it out and left it upside down over a tea towel on the counter. He emptied the coffee out of the pot and dumped what was in the coffee mugs as well. Giving them a rinse, he was just putting them on the counter when he heard a step in the doorway. He didn't look up, because right now he didn't want to look at Jack.

"Thank you," Jack said as he surveyed the place. Ianto had cleaned it up for him. "You didn't have to do that."

"Doesn't matter," Ianto said with a shrug. He pulled on his hoodie. "Ready?"

"Yeah," Jack said with a note of defeat. He picked up his coat and fished for his keys. "Let's go." At that moment something beeped and made Ianto look up. Jack opened the cover on the wrist strap he wore and looked at something there. He swore softly. "Damn."

Ianto fought the urge to ask him what was wrong. He told himself he didn't care. He didn't want to know. Didn't want to get sucked into Jack's world. Jack just shook his head and snapped the cover back over the top of the watch or whatever it was before heading towards the door. He left his duffel bag behind. Ianto was going to say something and decided not to. He didn't really care and didn't want to talk more than he had to.


	16. Chapter 16

The alert had chimed on Andy's PDA just after midnight. He had been home by that point, though he hadn't gotten to bed yet. After going back and forth in his head and wandering around the city for a while, he had decided that Jack wouldn't be happy if he just went to London, so he decided to go home instead. He was just picking up his mobile when it rang. It was Owen.

"Sorry mate, but we've got a Weevil infestation on our hands," Owen said. "I'm here in the Hub and Jack is nowhere to be found. Is he with you?"

"No, sorry," Andy replied. He was already picking up his jacket and heading for the door. "He had to go to London for some high level meeting. He's probably halfway there right now. I can try and ring him, but it sounded like this was something he had to go do. Where are the Weevils? I can meet you there and we can save some time that way."

"Down on the docks it seems. Suzie's listening to the police reports right now. Sounds like a madhouse. Meet us down there and ring me when you get close. I'll tell you where we are," Owen said. He checked his gun and pocketed some more ammunition. "Did Jack take the SUV?"

"No," Andy said as he left his flat and took the stairs two at a time down to the street. "He left it in case we needed it." He pushed out the door of the lobby and onto the sidewalk. Turning right, he headed for his car. "I'm on my way."

"Right, we'll pick up the SUV and meet you down on the docks," Owen said. "I'm going to call Tosh and have her go back to the Hub to monitor things. I'm a bit concerned about what got them all so excited. This is going to be a bit of a cleanup, from what we're hearing on the police band."

"Sounds good," Andy replied, his mind on the task at hand. "I have some supplies in the boot of my car, so hopefully that will help, too. See you in a bit," he rung off as he got into his car and got in. His mind was on what could have caused a Weevil uprising. Usually they only traveled around in groups when something was bothering them. It made him shiver, but he put the thought out of his head as he turned his car in a tight u-turn and started heading towards the Cardiff dock area.

Ianto followed Jack out the door and closed it behind him. Making his way to the passenger side of the car, he slumped down as low as he could as soon as he sat down, his hood pulled up and his hands shoved into his pockets. Jack revved the engine to the car and peeled out of the driveway, the tires spitting gravel as they dug down into the dirt before finding some traction. He took the drive a lot faster than he should have and Ianto was forced to grip the arm of the door and hang on. He bit his lip but said nothing as they nearly bottomed out before getting onto the pavement of the roadway. Jack made an effort to slow down once they did hit the road, but he had a death grip on the wheel as he did so. He glanced over at the man next to him, but all he could see was the back of Ianto's hood as he looked out the window.

This had gone so wrong. From that chance instance of seeing the photograph to his explanation and now a Weevil alert. He let out a shuddering breath, trying to calm down. No point in getting them killed on the way back to Cardiff. He deliberately made an effort to slow down. He could survive an accident; the man beside him couldn't. And he wouldn't be responsible for his death. The silence hung between them in the car like a barrier.

"I'm sorry," Jack finally said in a low voice. Ianto didn't respond. "I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry if I did. It's just that once I met you, I saw you as your own person. Not a shadow of anyone else. In a lot of ways you're nothing like him. And that's okay. I like you a lot, Ianto. For who you are, and not the person I came there looking for."

"It doesn't matter," Ianto muttered. He was trying to close out what Jack was saying and not let him affect him. His thoughts were all over the place. Mostly, he was cursing himself for becoming involved. He made the mistake he had promised himself he would never do. He closed his eyes and tried to think about something else other than what Jack was saying. He wasn't going to do it. Wasn't going to put himself in that situation. He wasn't going to step into a dead man's shoes. His skin crawled with the idea. "Just stop, please."

Jack heard the plea in Ianto's voice and the rest of what he was going to say died before he could open his mouth. Ianto was right. It didn't matter. They met under false pretenses and nothing he could say could convince this man of how he felt. He was so confused himself right now that he wasn't sure what it was he felt. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.

In one of those strange twists of perception, the drive back seemed longer than it had on the way out from the city. The silence stretched out between them, feeling heavy with unspoken words. Jack rested his arm on the edge of the door and leaned his head against his hand, steering with his free hand. Ianto seemed to be studiously avoiding looking in his direction, pretending to be absorbed with what was outside the window. Except for the fact that they were in the middle of the country and there was nothing to see but whatever was lit by the light of the moon. Jack stifled a sigh. He had had such high hopes, and they had all been dashed by an instant. His thoughts turned maudlin, and he began to wonder if his search for the man he was looking for would be like the Holy Grail and a goal that he would never achieve. Maybe there was no other man out there that was like the Ianto Jones he knew. A man who could accept him for all of his faults and would understand what he was trying to do. Maybe he was one of a kind and all of these permutations were just pale reflections of the man he had known.

He glanced over to the Ianto Jones from this universe who sat slumped in the seat beside him. No. This man was no reflection. He was his own man, with his own feelings and thoughts, and it was the knowledge of finding himself as a replacement for a man who was dead that had made him reject what Jack was offering. Even if that offer would take him from the hard life that he was leading now. Jack had a lot of respect for him. In a man with lesser values he might have found someone who was willing to pay him lip service without a real commitment, in exchange for money and a comfortable life. People had sold themselves for far less.

It was while they were driving in silence that his wrist strap beeped again. This time it was with a different tone and Jack frowned. He jerked his wrist to flip the cover open and glanced down. An amber light was lit and it took him a moment to recognize what he had set it for as a warning. Once it came to him he nearly lost control of the car.

"Hey!" Ianto yelled as the car swerved on the road before Jack was able to right it. "Trying to get us killed?"

"Sorry," Jack said without glancing at the man beside him. "Just more bad news." He leaned on the pedal and the car seemed to jump forward as it sped up in response. Inside his head there was a litany of curses in half a dozen languages, none of them spoken on this planet. It was only when he heard the soft intake of breath from Ianto that he realized he was muttering them out loud.

Ianto shrank against the side of the car as he listened to Jack. It was like he was speaking in tongues. Nothing coming out of his mouth made sense. Jack abruptly stopped as he became aware of what he was doing.

"Sorry," he muttered again. As if the night couldn't go from bad to worse, it had with that simple alarm going off. It was the alert he had programmed for the presence of another vortex manipulator. His other self was back, and would no doubt be at the Hub before he could get there to intercept. If any of the team were about dealing with the Weevil collection, they were going to run into him. He sighed and made a concerted effort to concentrate and keep on the road. What was done was done, and he couldn't stop any of it. None of this was going as planned.

Ianto was tense, his body cramped as he scrunched down into the seat. He was angry and confused, but mostly he felt betrayed. Thoughts were spinning through his head with all that Jack had told him. He wasn't sure what he believed anymore if half of what Jack had told him was true. And he suspected it was more than half. He stared out the window into the night. Who was this man he had been sleeping with over the last few weeks? Was he a mad man who just had a fixation on him because he looked amazingly like another guy that Jack once knew? His mind immediately rejected that thought. No, he didn't look like that guy, he looked exactly like him. He knew that people said that everyone had a double out there in the world, but not like that. And Jack knew his surname. He wondered if maybe Jack had gotten that information from looking up his priors, but it still didn't explain the man in the photograph. He knew he believed what Jack had told him. As fantastic as it was, it all rang true. He looked ahead and could see the lights of the city as they approached. They were getting closer and all he could think about was getting away from the insane situation in which he had found himself.

Jack glanced over at the man sitting next to him. Ianto was hunched down as if trying to keep as much distance from him as possible. His heart ached with everything that had happened. During the drive he had turned philosophical, wondering if he was that cursed that he would never be able to do anything right, and that this was just some cosmic retribution for everything he had done in the past. The more he thought about it the more he realized that there probably would have been no good way to explain it all to the man beside him. In the end, this Ianto was right – he had been looking for a replacement. A man who could step into the shoes and be the partner he wanted. And no one could do that. They had to be their own man, with their own thoughts and feelings. He sighed. For all the searching he had done, all the time he had spent, he was still learning things, both about himself and the universe around him.

They were reaching the outskirts of the city and Jack slowed down. He didn't want to have to deal with the South Wales police at the moment. And it would be just his luck to get pulled over and then arrested for picking up a prostitute. And he really couldn't afford to be spending time dealing with that.

"I don't want to leave things like this," he said quietly, speaking for the first time in ages. "I feel badly about all of this, and I just don't want to drop you off on a street corner somewhere." Ianto didn't respond at all as he passed through the city limits and started navigating the narrow streets towards the center, heading towards the Bay. "I'd like to give you some money so you can at least spend the night in a hotel and off the streets. Would that be okay?"

Ianto shrugged indifferently. He didn't much care what Jack thought at the moment. It was the middle of the night and it was also getting a little cold, the wind was whipping around as they got nearer to the coast. He knew if left on his own he probably might be able to find a spot in one of the regular flops that he frequented, but that was always a hit or miss possibility, depending on who else was out looking for a place to crash. He really didn't have any friends on the street, preferring to be a loner and keeping to himself. It didn't really endear him to anyone and he had found he didn't really care. It was safer that way, giving him a layer of protection for when someone disappeared. If he didn't care, he wouldn't worry about anyone else but himself.

Jack took his shrug as acquiescence and headed in the direction of a tourist hotel that he knew wouldn't ask too many questions. He pulled up to the curb and shifted the car into park. "Ianto, you do not know how sorry I am for all of this," he said in a low voice. "I wish I hadn't made a hash of all of this and I hope that you could forgive me for not being upfront with you in the first place." He fished in one of his pockets looking for something and pulled out a card. Digging out a pen, he wrote a phone number on the back. "You may not want to now, but if you change your mind, you can try and reach me here. I've got some stuff I need to go deal with, but I want to be able to say goodbye before I go. That is, if you can even look at me again," he said quietly. Ianto was still looking away from him, though he knew the younger man heard every word he said. He pulled out his wallet and took all the money out.

"Here, please take this. If nothing else, it will keep you fed and warm, and off the streets for a while," he said. Ianto glanced over at the wad of cash. He felt numb, his brain having shut down at some point during the ride. "Please," Jack whispered.

Ianto stared down at the hand holding the cash before reaching out to take it. "Fine," he said. He didn't have the energy to argue with this man and if he wanted to give away all his cash, who was he to argue? He shoved the wad of money in his hoodie pocket and opened the car door. He got out and turned towards Jack but couldn't even look at him. "Bye."

Jack swallowed past a lump in his throat before replying. "Goodbye, Ianto. Please take care of yourself." The young man jerked his head in acknowledgment before slamming the car door shut. He then turned and walked into the vestibule of the hotel and into the lobby. The night clerk was busy talking on the phone and didn't see him, so he quickly sat down on one of the sofas off to one side where Jack couldn't see him. He could hear the car idling for a moment before the engine revved and the car moved off. Ianto waited, watching the minutes tick by on the wall clock above the registration desk. When he felt that enough time had passed he went back out the door and onto the street. Glancing around, he couldn't see any sign of the car that Jack had been driving. Pulling the zipper up on his hoodie, he hunched his shoulders and started walking. He had no intention of staying in any place that Jack had told him to. At this point, he just didn't trust the man not to come back looking for him.

A couple of blocks up the street Jack sat in the car, which was parked off to one side. He was looking in his rearview mirror and after ten minutes he saw the telltale light grey hoodie leave the hotel. He sighed. He knew Ianto wouldn't stay, but at least he had taken the money. Jack had slipped the card into the folded bills. Maybe Ianto wouldn't throw it away, but would actually hold onto it. Although Jack didn't know how long he was going to be in this reality, given the arrival of his other self. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat headrest. Maybe he shouldn't go back. Let the team deal with the Jack that had showed up. Just leave and not look back. Immediately as he thought it, he rejected that idea. He couldn't do that to them. Couldn't walk away and leave them with the mess to clean up. He owed it to them to explain what he had done. And he wanted to talk to his other self and make him realize what it was he was treating so cavalierly. But mostly, he needed to be able to say goodbye to the people he hadn't been able to when they died in his reality. He felt tears begin to prickle at the thought of leaving them. He didn't want to go. Didn't want to leave these people who had crept into his life and stole his heart away, as much as he had fought it in the beginning. He opened his eyes and stared at himself in the rear view mirror. After staring at himself for a time he started the engine. Time to go back to the Hub and deal with the mess he had created.


	17. Chapter 17

By the time Jack got back to the Hub, it was after three o'clock in the morning. Far later than when the first alarm had gone off. He had stopped cursing himself for bad timing a while ago and was just getting on with what he had to. By this point the team had to be at the Hub, and the other Jack, too. He pulled up onto the sidewalk, close to the barriers that blocked the Plass walkway from car traffic. Leaving the car where it was, he began jogging across the Plass towards the Tourist Centre entrance. The invisible lift was way too slow in this instance, and he was hoping to be able to find out what was going on in the main Hub before he walked in.

He used his key in the door and it squeaked open. Shutting it behind him, he went behind the counter and logged into Andy's PC. He drummed his fingers impatiently as he waited for the boot sequence to finish. He tried logging into the system and wasn't surprised to see a large ACCESS DENIED message flash across the screen. Okay, he thought to himself. He was going to have to do this the hard way. He pressed the button under the counter, wondering if his other self had taken the Hub into lockdown. When the secret door opened, he let out a sigh of relief. Squaring his shoulders, he turned towards the opening and slipped inside. He didn't take the lift, though he knew that they knew he had to be coming. He took the stairs instead, working his way down to the lower levels, his mind on what he was going to say when he got there.

The cog wheel door seemed to take forever to open. Jack stood, his legs braced for a confrontation. The proximity alarms were going on with the opening of the door. He waited for the steel gates to swing back and listened. Other than the whir of the machinery and the cry of Myfanwy above him, the main Hub was silent. He stepped through the door and looked around. So his access to the computer system had been cut off, but not his access to anything else. He cocked his head and thought for a moment. He nodded to himself and turned in the direction of the lower levels. He knew exactly where to go.

Opening the door to the boardroom, he saw that he was right. The Jack Harkness from this reality stood at the end of the table, facing the door as it opened. The rest of the staff sat around the table. Jack glanced at their faces and saw a mixture of disbelief, anger and in the case of Andy, hurt and confusion. He closed his eyes briefly before returning his gaze towards his double.

"I don't know who you are, but you're good," his doppelgänger said. "Good enough to fool my staff, and they're the best around. You're a bold one, coming back. So, I guess I spoiled your little game by showing up. Not sure how you knew I was gone, but you were able to slip in real easy, weren't you?" Jack recognized his friendly tactic of chatting up the enemy while planning something really nasty as a surprise. He just stood there and let his other self speak. "So, Nostrovite?"

"No," Jack said. He didn't elaborate further. He was concerned about how the team was going to react to the truth. Especially Andy, though Suzie was also a concern. Owen was staring at him, looking betrayed. He returned his gaze to the man before him.

"Well, they aren't the only shapeshifters in the universe," his other self mused. "But you know, something really confuses me," he said in a conversational tone. Jack waited for him to continue. "You can fool most people some of the time, but I wouldn't have thought you could fool my team as well as you did for as long as you have. Not without a lot of research, and while I might be bragging just a bit, there isn't enough information on this planet for anyone to do enough research on me to be able to fake me that well." He moved alongside the table, walking towards Jack. He stopped inches away from where Jack stood. Then he inhaled deeply and nodded. "Certainly can't fake that."

"No, you can't," Jack said. Despite himself, he was feeling a bit amused by the confrontation now that it was at hand. "So what do you make of that?" He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for an answer. Suzie looked from one man to another. While they were virtually identical, there were subtle differences. The Jack who had walked in looked a bit more careworn and tired, for one thing. But to her he also seemed a lot more human than the Jack who had walked in on them after the Weevil hunt. It made her wonder what the truth was here.

Andy watched the confrontation of the two men, feeling incredibly confused. When Jack had shown up after the Weevil hunt he had automatically turned to him, gave him a kiss and asked him why he had turned back from London. At first he had thought that Jack had turned back because of the Weevils, but it soon became apparent that he didn't know anything about the rift alert, nor a trip to London to speak to the Queen and the Prime Minister. When Jack told him that he had just gotten back from being away for over eight months, Andy had been totally confused. He had been back with them for over a month now, so for him to say he had only just gotten back was rather confusing.

The rest of the team had come back from putting the Weevils in containment cells and that was when the whole thing had started to unravel. Jack had moved them down to the boardroom to talk about what had been going on and he had listened to their tales about the Jack who had turned up five weeks before, claiming to be him. Immediately he had changed the password access on the Torchwood mainframe. He had been concerned that the imposter might have left some backdoor access, but for the moment before he could look into the security breach he could only lock down what he knew to be compromised. He had asked Toshiko to start a scan for any changes over the past several months, wondering whether the imposter had done some prep work before showing up on their doorstep, posing as himself.

Back in the boardroom he was revising his opinion as he stared at the man before him. He could easily smell the telltale pheromone scent that indicated he was from the 51st century. That was unmistakable and impossible to fake.

"Funny, this doesn't feel like a temporal paradox," he murmured to himself. His mirror image shook his head in agreement. "So you're not from my future and you certainly don't look like you're from my past."

"No," Jack replied. He stared into his own eyes, wondering where to begin. "Keep on going."

Jack Harkness stood staring at the man in front of him who stood at ease with his arms crossed. He then turned to look at his team, staring at each one in turn before returning to the man standing before him. "Well, there's only one possible answer, but I don't know how or why you would do it."

"No, I don't suppose you would, would you?" Jack murmured. He could see Toshiko frowning as she tried to puzzle out the cryptic conversation. It was obvious that the two men were on the same wavelength about it, but it wasn't very obvious to her. "I don't suppose I could have a cup of coffee, could I? It's been one hell of a night so far, and it would be better to do this sitting down, don't you think?" Andy automatically stood in response to his request but froze as he started to move away from the table. He glanced from one man to the other. The Jack Harkness from this reality just turned and stared at him before giving him a nod and letting him continue. He turned back to Jack and stared at him for a long moment.

"Where are my manners? Sit down," he said, indicating the seat at the far end of the table. Jack pulled it back and sat down while his double moved to the head and sat down at the same time, the chair squeaking as he did so. He stared down the length of the table towards Jack.

"Obviously you two know more than the rest of us," Owen finally said as Andy brought a tray of coffee mugs over to the table. "Care you let us all in on what this is all about?" Suzie stared from one end of the table to the other, waiting for an answer. Neither man spoke as Andy went first to the head of the table with a mug of coffee before serving the others in turn, finally bringing the last mug down to the end. He was trembling as he placed it in front of Jack.

Jack stared at the steaming mug and looked up at Andy. "Thank you." Andy gave a jerky nod but he wouldn't meet his gaze. He turned and went back to his seat near the head of the table and sat down. The Captain at the head of the table frowned thoughtfully as Andy sat. Jack looked down at the mug, picked it up and took a sip. He glanced up and locked gazes with his double. "Always appreciate a good cup of coffee."

"True," he double commented. "Thank you, Andy." Andy seemed a little startled as the real Jack in his universe thanked him for the coffee before drinking. He gazed down the length of the table and Jack felt for him. The look of confusion in the other man's face was his fault.

"Well?" Owen asked. He felt like he was at some sort of negotiation between warring factions where everyone was just being extra polite in an attempt not to set off an argument. "Going to clue us in here?"

"He is Jack as well," the man at the head of the table said with a nod towards the other end of the table. "Though not from our version of reality."

"Huh?" Owen shook his head. "Run that by me one more time?" Toshiko inhaled softly, a look of understanding on her face. The others seemed slower on the uptake. She turned towards Jack and smiled. He winked at her and smiled back. Trust Toshiko to get it.

"I came from a parallel universe," Jack said as he put his mug down. "Though to be honest, I wasn't exactly sure where I was going to end up when I came through." Suzie frowned, thoughts whirring through her head.

"Why?" She put down her mug with a clatter, which made Andy jump. "You came through deliberately?" Jack nodded. "Why?"

"I was looking for someone," Jack said. He didn't want to elaborate further, but he could see from the look of concentration on Andy's face that he was thinking about it. He knew enough about the man to know that he would put it together based on their prior conversations.

"Did you find him?" The Captain Jack of this reality said. Jack turned his gaze towards the head of the table and nodded. "And?"

"And…." Jack lifted the mug and set it down again without drinking. "I made a mistake in coming here."

"I'll say," Owen said. He was staring intently at the man at the end of the table. Getting up, he looked at the Jack from his reality and then walked the length of the room to where Jack was sitting. Jack looked up and met his gaze. Owen stared at him, looking to see if there were any differences. There were some minor ones, but otherwise the two men were identical. "So are you telling me that the alternate reality you came from had us in it?"

"Yes," Jack said with a nod. Owen stared at him, seeing the sincerity of his words. "I've known you for years, Owen Harper. And you sir, are an amazing man." Owen couldn't help but respond to the note of praise in his voice and he smiled. He turned to look back at the head of the table before turning back to Jack.

"Well you're a bit nicer, I'll grant you that," he said. He turned and went over to the counter to bring the pot of coffee over.

"Hey!" His Captain protested. "I'm nice!"

"No, actually, you're a bit of a prick," Owen retorted as he returned with the coffee pot. He poured himself a fresh cup before turning to refill Jack's mug. Jack smiled up at him. He was trying not to laugh.

"Am I really a prick?" This reality's Captain asked the group seated at the table. Toshiko looked down, embarrassed by the question. Andy shook his head no, but the move wasn't too convincing. Suzie just stared at him, her gaze wary. "Suzie?"

"You left us," she said accusingly. "You left me to run this place and you didn't even tell us you were going. Where were you?"

"Sorry," Captain Jack Harkness said. "I can't tell you." Suzie rolled her eyes and turned to look at Jack seated at the end of the table.

"Well, some things are consistent," she muttered. "Can you tell me where he was?"

"No idea," Jack replied honestly. "It doesn't match my timeline at all." He stared at the man across from him. In some ways, it was like looking in a mirror, but with subtle differences. It was like he had stepped back in time, and in some ways he had.

"So we exist in an alternate plane," Toshiko murmured, her mind going through all of the possibilities. "And obviously it's pretty close to your own reality for you to be able to step into the Hub and convince us that you were our Jack." Jack smiled at her and nodded.

"Why?" Suzie asked again. Jack turned his attention in her direction. "Why the game?"

Jack sighed and rubbed his face with his hand. "It's complicated." Suzie slammed her hand on the table, creating a loud smacking sound which startled Andy.

"Damn it, that's not what I want to hear you say!" She said in an intense voice as she stared down the length of the table. "It's always complicated with you, Jack Harkness. Always too much for us poor mortal humans to understand. Well this time I'm not accepting that for an answer. And I think we deserve one. Why did you come in here and deceive us?"

"I came here using alien technology from my archives," Jack said. "And as I said, I came here looking for someone. Someone I had lost in my own version of reality. When I realized where I had jumped, I came into the Hub to do some reconnaissance. I actually thought at first that I had just timeshifted and was still in my own universe. Once I realized that I was someplace else, I hoped I could use the Hub computers to find the person I was looking for." He looked down and stared into his mug.

"And you found us," Toshiko continued. Jack nodded, but didn't look up. "Are we the same team you have on your side?"

"Not exactly," Jack said. He glanced up and looked around the table before his gaze settled on Andy briefly. Then he looked back at her. Suzie was still staring at him. He knew it was only a matter of time before she figured it out.

"Are we all still alive in your universe?" Suzie asked him. He met her eyes with his own and decided they deserved the truth. He shook his head wordlessly. Owen swore softly. "All of us?"

"Yeah," Jack said. "Well, except Andy. He didn't work for Torchwood where I come from." Andy jumped slightly at Jack's comment. He finally looked up from the table top and met Jack's gaze. He wasn't sure if he was seeing what he wanted to see, or whether it was really there, but it felt like Jack was silently apologizing for him for not being honest with him. He bit his lip but said nothing.

The Captain Jack from this universe had sat back in his chair and let his team ask the questions. It was obvious from the way they were acting betrayed and hurt that they felt hurt by his absence. It startled him. When he had left to go off planet to deal with something from his past he hadn't given them a thought when he had been transported up to the Halfrain scout ship. He didn't have much choice, since they had threatened to blow a hole the size of Cardiff into the Earth's crust if he didn't go. It had been a case of his past catching up with him and it had taken some time for him to convince the court that he was innocent of the charges imposed upon him by the Halfains. In the end, he had gotten off on a technicality, and they had transported him back to where they had found him. Their reactions had given him a lot to think about, and he was bothered by the way the Jack from the other universe had slipped into the team with such ease and that they actually preferred the other man to himself.

"How do you know me where you come from?" Andy finally asked.

"You work as a PC," Jack told him. "And are pretty much constantly annoyed by Torchwood's interference in investigations." He smiled at the man. "But you make a fantastic part of the team here." Andy smiled tentatively.

"So we're not…?" Andy didn't want to voice his full question and when he saw the sad smile on Jack's lips and the shake of his head no, he was glad he hadn't had to.

"No," Jack said softly. "I'm sorry."

"So who were you looking for?" Owen asked. "And did we all die? Is it just you left running things in your universe?"

"I was looking for a member of my team that I lost," Jack said. "You wouldn't know him. And yeah, you're all gone in my universe. I left someone else running things, and she has some help from friends."

"Why was this person you're looking for so important that you would abandon the running of Torchwood to someone else?" Suzie asked. She took it as a given that she would die at some point in the course of her duty here. Torchwood operatives didn't have much longevity when you looked at the track record of the staff in the recorded history of the Institute.

"Because…." Jack sighed. He bowed his head for a moment as he thought. What had happened in his reality may not necessarily happen in this one. But he planned to have a private conversation with his counterpart to give him some warning. He didn't care if it screwed with the timeline, but he really couldn't bear to think of these people dying one by one. Not again. And if this Jack was prepared for the future, perhaps he could find a different solution that would save people without all the pain that he had suffered. He rubbed his eyes, feeling immensely tired. "Because we were a couple."

Toshiko gasped softly and it made him look up. She stared at him in sympathy and he could see the slight shimmer of unshed tears. He had to look away, unable to face her. Suzie was staring at him in shock. The Jack Harkness she knew didn't let people in too close. He always kept things casual and at a friendly arm's length. Things began to click for her and she realized just what it had been that was so different about this man. This Jack had let people in. He had fallen in love with one of them. Enough so that he was now searching through alternate realities to find the person he had lost. She felt a tiny pang that it wasn't her. Even though she and Jack had never been that way. But to know that this man would spend his time searching for the person he had lost spoke to some yearning need inside of her.

"The rent boy," Andy finally said and Jack shifted his gaze towards him. He nodded.

"Once a PC, always a PC," he said with a slight smile on his face. "Yes."


	18. Chapter 18

"Jack's in love with a rent boy?" Owen asked, mostly in disbelief. Andy shrugged but didn't meet his gaze. It all made sense now that he was able to piece it all together. He looked at Jack and saw the wordless apology in his eyes. Jack hadn't meant to hurt him, but probably couldn't figure a way out of things without hurting him. He smiled at the man at the end of the table, silently forgiving him for his lie of omission.

Captain Jack Harkness sat at the head of the table and said nothing as the whole tale came out with the questions of his team. He stared at the man who was his twin, but who was so different from himself. He had deliberately closed himself off from caring too much precisely because he couldn't deal with the heartache. Even then, he found that it hurt when he lost people. He couldn't be that mechanical, but to see what his other self was going through made him wonder what it was that he was missing, if he'd cross the parallel boundaries just to find the man he loved again.

"He was a Torchwood agent in my reality," Jack said as he turned his gaze in Owen's direction. "It was a bit of a surprise finding out what he was doing here."

"Did you find him?" Toshiko asked. Jack shifted his gaze over and nodded. "And?"

"Bet he was a good shag, at least," Owen said. The women rolled their eyes as Jack burst into laughter. "What?" Owen protested, unable to see why the women would be outraged at his comment.

"Is he going back with you?" Andy asked. Jack stopped laughing and looked down before sighing.

"No," he said quietly. "No, he isn't."

"Would you really take him back with you?" Toshiko asked. She was feeling a lot of sympathy for this Jack. It was obvious that whatever had happened to him in his reality, he had been through hell and back. And that he had loved someone enough to be able to search for them through time and space to alternate realities. It made him more human to her and less of an enigma than the Jack she had known for so long.

"I wanted to," Jack said. "But he said no." He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling drained and incredibly tired.

"Why not?" Andy asked. Jack didn't respond to his question. "If it were me, I would." The rest of the team looked at him in surprise. "Well, anything has to be better than living day to day out on the streets."

"Apparently not," Owen said. He was staring at this duplicate Jack and could see that he looked tired and a bit defeated. He was mentally trying to compare this Jack with the one from his own world, and found that it created more questions for him than answers. How could the same man be so different? The researcher in him wanted to pursue it further; wanted to find out what made Jack tick, and how much having different experiences would change him.

"He didn't want to be a replacement for a dead man," their Jack answered. Jack nodded, his eyes still closed. "It also doesn't sound like it's the most stable of situations where you are."

"No," Jack responded. "That it hasn't been."

"I'm sorry, Jack," Toshiko said, impulsively putting her hand on his. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "I wish it had worked out differently for you."

"So do I," he said with a sigh. "But I'm happy about one thing. It brought me here and I got to see all of you again. I wouldn't trade that for the world."

Owen looked down for a moment, embarrassed by Jack's comment. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Right. So, how did I die?"

"Sorry," Jack told him with a shake of his head. "I can't tell you that. Timelines and all."

"So you're not going to tell us in case it happens here?" Suzie asked with a frown. Jack turned his head to look at her where she was sitting across from Andy. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a defensive posture. "What's the point then?"

"No one knows whether what happened in my universe will happen here. Already things are different here in a lot of ways, so there's no guarantee that anything that happened to you there would happen here. So I can't tell you, but I can tell him," Jack said with a nod of his chin towards the other end of the table. "If he's willing to listen."

"I'm willing," The Captain Jack of this universe said. "If it will make a difference and keep my team safe, I'm all ears." He smiled winningly at his team. Andy smiled back, but Suzie and Owen just stared at him for a moment before returning their gazes towards the other Jack. "Maybe we should get started." Jack nodded in agreement. "All right folks, go home. I'll see you in the morning and we'll talk then. It's almost dawn. Take the day off unless I call you."

Owen and Suzie stood up, followed a moment later by Andy, and then Tosh. They bade the two men goodnight before heading out the door. At the entrance Tosh paused and turned back. She placed her hand on Jack's shoulder, making him look up.

"Please don't go until we come back," she asked quietly. He stared up at her and smiled.

"I won't. I promise," he told her. She gave him a brilliant smile before turning back to the doorway and going through it. The two men listened to the footsteps receding before Jack pressed something on his vortex manipulator and the door closed.

"Am I really a prick?" The captain from this reality asked and Jack laughed in response. Had he ever been that shallow? He didn't even have to ask himself the question. He had been that and far worse at one point. "They seem to like you a lot more than they do me."

"You can't close them out, Jack," he told himself. A part of him was thinking on how strange this whole thing was, and how he was now giving advice to himself. He mentally shook his head over the whole concept and knew it had to be one of the stranger things he had ever experienced. "They need you and you need them just as much. Trust in your team. They're the best out there, and if half of what I experienced happens here, you're going to need them. You can't hold them off at arm's length. They need you to care for them."

"It hurts too much," the other man responded. He knew how surreal this whole conversation was, but it didn't surprise him to find himself talking to himself right now. "They're all going to die eventually."

"Yeah, they will," Jack responded with a nod. "And it's still going to hurt. But they believe in you and what you're doing here. Give them the credit for that. Give them the love they deserve for their devotion. They live for Torchwood, and they live for you. Give them that at least."

"They shouldn't," Captain Jack said with a shake of his head. "I'm just ruining their lives in the end."

"No, you're saving them," Jack responded. He leaned forward onto the table and spoke earnestly. "Look at them. Toshiko was in prison. Owen, wracked by what happened to Katie. Suzie…" Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Treasure them. Trust them. Be supportive of them and you'll be amazed at how much it will help. It's still going to hurt when they're gone, but you'll have some amazing memories of what they were able to accomplish." And with that he began telling the other man about his own reality. He wasn't sure any of it was going to happen, and he did avoid telling him too much of his own personal timeline stuff, because chances were that would happen at some point. But he told him about the threats to the team that had happened. And about Grey. He saw the look of shock on the other man's face as Jack told him about what Grey had done.

"He's alive?" The Captain Jack from this universe whispered. He was pale and he stared at this counterpart with an intensity that begged for more detail. Jack nodded.

"He was in my universe. It's probable he is in yours here, too. But in mine he was damaged by what had happened to him. I hope it isn't the same here. But you need to be careful, because he ripped my universe apart. He…" Jack paused and swallowed as he remembered. "He killed Toshiko and in the process Owen ended up dying. Again." He continued on with what he knew. He knew the Doctor would be furious, but he needed to know that this Jack would keep the team safe. The future was unwritten here, and if what he told his counterpart helped to keep them that way, he would be content.

"Suzie?" Jack was asked. "How'd she die?"

"She shot herself. She didn't have anyone to talk to," Jack replied. "The pressure of it all got to her. It ate at her, and I missed the signs that could have stopped what happened. Here, she has Owen. They're good for one another. And while you were gone she took control here. She hated it, but she did it. Look in the records. She was amazing," he said with a note of admiration in his voice. "Still is. Let her in, Jack. She needs you."

"And what about the one you were looking for?"

"Ianto," Jack said with a sad smile. "He died in my arms." He closed his eyes, seeing it all again too vividly. The memory of the light leaving those blue eyes as he held the other man in his arms would forever haunt him, no matter how far he searched for another version of him.

"If you don't care, you can't hurt like that," was the reply. He opened his eyes again and stared at the man that he had been trying to get through for several hours now.

"It doesn't stop you from hurting," he told his double. "We both know that. It's like Shakespeare. Better to have loved and lost, after all. And I loved him so damned much. I just couldn't tell him, for that I'll always be sorry.

"Loving someone makes life worth living. After all, why else are you here? I know," he said as he raised his hand to forestall the other man. "You're stuck. But trust me, even if you get out of here, you'll learn what you have here. Learn to appreciate it. I don't know where you were because it didn't happen in my reality, but I find it interesting that you came back. If you were off planet, you didn't have to," Jack said. The other man said nothing for a long moment. He didn't give a clue as to where he had been.

"What do you know that you're not telling me?" The Captain finally asked him. He leaned forward. "You've met the Doctor again." Jack didn't answer. He didn't need to answer. "When?"

"Your time line? No idea," Jack said. "And no, I'm not going to tell you what happened to me. That's yours to find out if it happens. I've messed enough up here, I'm not going to go there." He watched as the other man sat back. He knew himself well enough to know that he wasn't going to talk. "But think about everything I've said. Those people are counting on you and they love you, despite your being a bit of a prick." He grinned. He couldn't help the fact that it tickled him that Owen had said that. "But you can change that. They'll forgive you, but you have to give them something as well.

"And Andy," Jack continued. "He adores you. He's special. Show him that he means something. He'll already walk on coals to assist you on anything you need to do, and you have a fantastic partner there if you will only let him in."

"And turn into you when he dies in the end?" The other man asked bitterly. He turned away, not wanting to face himself. He didn't want to see the look in the other man's eyes.

"No," Jack said quietly. "That's not set in stone. Andy is just an acquaintance in my universe. His story is unwritten here. But you can have a part in shaping it. Give him more than a grope in the archives. He's a member of your team, and he is damned good at what he does. Give him something more than a shag in the dark and you might be surprised what you get back in return." He bit back a sigh when he saw his doppelgänger's expression. He knew that stubborn look, but he had had his say. Maybe it would make the other man think.

By the time they finished their conversation the day was well underway. They called in for a delivery, and had breakfast in the main area of the Hub. They worked together on some stuff, working to secure the systems from possible intrusion and helping to make it as secure as they could without knowing what the future would hold.

"So," the captain from this universe asked as the other one was typing on the keyboard. "Where do you go after this? Are you going back home and giving up, or are you going to keep on looking?"

Jack sat back with a sigh and rubbed his neck. "I don't know. I have to admit that Ianto was right. I can't expect the man I find to just step into someone else's shoes. But somewhere out there is a man who was enough alike that maybe he will want to come back with me. And I've learned something, which is that he'll never be exactly the same person. They all have different experiences which make them different men. But I've come to realize that no matter what world or what reality, that whenever I find him, I'll still love him. Because he'll always be the same person at the core. Even if he is a rent boy." He smiled. He watched as his counterpart shook his head.

"And you say this is better?" His mirror image asked him skeptically. "Caring for someone so much that you would chase through multiple parallel universes to find them again?"

"You know that if we had the capability to do it we would have done it," Jack reminded him, "looking for Grey." They both sighed simultaneously. "Okay, not a great example, but true nonetheless. What if we hadn't given up? Maybe things would have been different."

"Maybe," The other Captain Jack acknowledged. They both turned as the door alarms went off, signifying that the staff were coming back. "Didn't I tell them not to come in? Typical of them not to listen to me." He glanced sideways at the man across from him. "I guess we're just too much of a draw for them to stay away."

Jack chuckled as he looked down at his watch. "Time flies when you're having fun with yourself," he said with a cheeky grin that elicited a similar response from the man on the other side of the desk. "And to think all we did was talk."

"Yeah, fancy that," the other man replied as the staff showed up through the cog wheel door en masse.


	19. Chapter 19

Andy was the first through the door, looking about and visibly relaxing when he saw the two men still there. He nodded to them and went off to make the coffee. Jack shared a glance with his counterpart and he tilted his head. The Captain Jack from this universe just sighed and focused on the doorway. Suzie was next. She hadn't slept at all, but had lay there in the bed next to Owen thinking. She marched right up to Jack and stared at him.

"Welcome back," he said with a quiet smile. "Sleep well?" She put her hands on her hips and shook her head.

"No," she replied. "There was too much stuff going on in my head." She kept on staring at him and he met her gaze squarely. "Would you take me with you if I asked?" Owen stiffened at her side, shocked by her question.

"No," Jack said regretfully with a shake of his head. "You belong here." He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes and he reached up to touch the back of her hand. "You are amazing, Suzie. In this universe you are everything that I could have hoped for my Suzie to have been. She wasn't as strong as you." He stood up and gently clasped her shoulders. "This is the right place for you. You have Owen and besides, you need to whip this Jack into shape," he said with a grin. Involuntarily she smiled at his comment. "He may be stubborn, but I'm proof positive that he can change. Give him a chance."

She turned towards her Jack and gave him a considered look. She let out a deep sigh before she turned back to him. "It's more work that way."

"Yeah, but so worth the effort," he said with a grin. "Trust me on this one."

"This is just too damned weird," Owen muttered. He looked at Suzie. "Would you really leave us?" Jack looked from him to Suzie and watched as her expression softened.

"No," she replied. "I would have taken you with me." He grinned at her and she shook her head at his response.

"Thank you," Owen said. He gave her a kiss before going over to his console and typed his access password. While there were two Jacks there messing up their universe there was still work to be done. He needed to check the logs.

Toshiko had logged into her computer while Suzie and Jack had been talking, and she turned to face them. She had done a lot of thinking while she had been at home, and she could sympathize with Suzie's wish to go back with this other Jack to his reality. There was something about him that pulled on her heartstrings. She had spent several hours going over what she knew and had come up with the conclusion that this Jack was more vulnerable and open. That was probably why he was so much more likable than her own Captain. Though if she were honest with herself, she owed her Jack a lot and wouldn't have left him like Suzie wanted to do.

"Good morning," she said with a shy smile.

"Ohayou gozaimasu, Toshiko," Jack said with a smile. She looked down, ducking her head before peeking up at him and giving him a smile of delight. "Anata ga yoku nemuru ka?"

"Hai," she responded. "I slept very well, thank you." Jack had never spoken to her before in Japanese so she had no idea he knew the language. Though, knowing him, it didn't surprise her to find out he did. "Did you two sort everything out?"

Jack looked at his counterpart. "As much as could be expected." He watched as the other Captain Jack got up and after patting Toshiko's back in greeting, walked over to where Andy was making the coffee. He could see them speaking to one another in low voices and he felt a matter of satisfaction that perhaps something good would come out of his trip to this parallel universe. Toshiko followed his gaze before nodding. She was concerned about Andy. He hadn't wanted to talk when they were leaving earlier, but he seemed to be in a better frame of mind after getting some sleep. Of all of them, this had to be hardest on him.

"I know you didn't mean to hurt him," she said in a low voice, interrupting his thoughts. "I think he's going to be okay."

"I hope so," Jack replied in the same tone, not noticing as Suzie moved away and went to her workstation. "Hopefully I made him think about what he has there with Andy, and not to take him for a granted. Andy's a great guy, and he deserves better."

"Yes, he does," Tosh replied. "Thank you," she went on. Jack tilted his head as he looked up at her with a quizzical expression on his face. "I'm glad you came here, even if you didn't find what you were looking for. You made our lives better in the process, and I wanted to thank you for that."

"Toshiko, you would have found a way yourselves to get to the same point," Jack told her. He reached out and stroked her hand. "Individually you are all incredible people. Together, you are amazing when you combine your knowledge, skills and empathy together. Don't lose sight of that, and you will do okay."

"Do you really think so?" She asked him. He nodded. "You have such faith in us. Before…" involuntarily she glanced at the other Jack who was speaking earnestly to Andy in the corner. "Before, I never knew what you thought of us. There's so much on the surface, but I never knew what was below it." She turned back to him with a smile on her face. "But now, I know. Thank you."

"Thank you, Toshiko Sato," Jack said. "You've made my life better for knowing you." Impulsively he leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the lips. "You made me a better person."

"Anata wa jibun no yoi ningen ni na~tsu ta," Toshiko said quietly, and Jack smiled at her as she told him that he had made himself better.

"You are far too kind, Toshiko," Jack informed her. "But thank you, anyhow. As for him," Jack continued with a glance over to the kitchen. "He'll learn. It was because of you and the rest of the team that I became the person I am, so I assume the same will happen to him."

"I hope so," she said softly. "I'm going to miss you once you're gone." Jack looked back at her with a quizzical look on his face. "You've been good for all of us, too."

At that point the other Jack and Andy came out from the kitchen and distributed coffee to everyone. Jack smiled up at Andy. "Thank you," he said with a nod as he took his mug and saluted the man with it. "Liquid consciousness!" Andy smiled down at him before moving over to where Suzie was working.

"So," the other Captain Jack said. "When do you take off?"

"Soon," Jack said. "I don't think this universe can handle two of us being in one place at one time," he said with a grin that was answered by the other man. He winked at Toshiko and she nodded as she moved back to her station to give them some privacy. Standing, he stretched. "I just want to be able to say goodbye first."

"Okay," Captain Jack said. "I'll be in my office." Jack nodded and watched the other man turn and leave. Taking another sip of his coffee, he knew it was time. He scanned the room and his eyes settled on Suzie. She was prepping her forge, getting ready to work on one of her experiments. He nodded and headed over to her direction.

"Saying goodbye, are you?" Suzie asked. She had her headgear on that would protect her from sparks and was pulling her gloves on. Jack thought it was much like her pulling on a layer of armor to protect herself. He smiled at the mental image of a Suzie in full armor with a lance in her hand.

"Yeah," he replied. "Suzie, I want to thank you."

She looked up at him warily, wondering where he was going to go with his comment. "For what?"

"For being the fantastic person you are," Jack told her. "You are amazing. You were my first recruit here, and the decision to pull you in to help me was always the right one. I know things around here can be tough, and sometimes it isn't easy with all that you see here. But you've got some great people around you. Let them help you, even when you don't want to. I've learned the hard way that you can't keep people out. You only do them and yourself a disservice in the long run."

Suzie stared at him for a long time as he spoke and considered his words. "I have Owen," she finally said. He nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, you do. And I'm glad that you do have one another. You're good for him, and he is just as good for you. Make the most of it. Live your life, Suzie, and don't let the madness get to you." He paused as he searched for the words he was trying to say. "I'm so glad you're here. You are truly amazing."

She smiled in spite of herself. She had thought a lot about this Jack and how he was different from her own. While she was sorry to see him go, she did have to admit to herself that meeting him had given her hope for her own future at Torchwood as well as beginning to believe that he could change as well. That he could trust them – trust her to do what she needed to do. It made it all worth it to know that.

"Thank you, Jack," she said. She tugged off the gloves as she let Jack pull her into a hug. Wrapping her arms around him, she gave him a wordless embrace, hoping it would say what she couldn't put into words. He pulled back, stared into her eyes and smiled before giving her a light kiss on the lips.

"Be well, my friend," he said. She smiled at him, and something inside began to heal where Jack Harkness was concerned. He stepped back and let her get on with what she was doing. She busied herself to hide her emotions, but she couldn't help but glance up as he turned away, looking after him as he moved across the Hub. He went to Owen next and sat down next to him where he was typing in a medical report.

"You're not going to do something incredibly sappy like kiss me too, are you?" Owen asked without looking at him while he typed into the autopsy form.

"Only if you'd like me to," Jack said with a grin. He had missed Owen's snarky comments. "I'm told I'm a good kisser."

"I think I'll leave that to my own imagination, thanks," Owen replied. Jack chuckled. Owen continued to type for a few moments before stopping and turning to look at Jack. "I know I'm dead where you came from. I hope it was a good death, like I was saving the world or something."

"Yeah," Jack said with a smile as he looked at the man seated beside him. "You did good. But then, you've always done good. While I hate the way you came here, I'm glad I had you in my life. You made a difference, Owen." Owen turned away, not wanting Jack to see how his words were affecting him. "Don't lose sight of the fact that you make a difference, okay?"

"Yeah," the other man said gruffly. He placed his hands on the keyboard but didn't go back to typing. He had tried to tell himself it didn't matter that this Jack was leaving them, but he found that he felt like he was losing someone really important, even though his own Jack was now back.

"Can you do me a favor?" Jack asked. Owen glanced over at him and waited for him to continue. "Take care of the girls for me? Especially Suzie. She may push you away at times, but that's usually when she needs someone the most. And Toshiko," he sighed as he turned to look in her direction. "She's special."

"Yeah, she is," Owen said as he followed Jack's glance over towards the computer wiz who was staring at her screen in concentration. "And I'll watch Suzie. I love her, after all."

"Yeah," Jack said with a smile. "I'm glad you're happy, Owen. And while you don't want any kind of sappy stuff, can I at least give you a hug?" Owen shrugged, but got up so that he could be hugged. Jack put down his now empty mug and wrapped his arms around Owen.

"Thank you," he said as he pulled back. "You are an amazing physician, Owen Harper. I don't think I've ever told you that, but it's true. Thank you."

Owen had to work at not reacting to Jack's words. He hunched his shoulders in a shrug before grinning lopsidedly at Jack. "Thought you used to complain about my beside manner?"

"Yeah, but when it counts, you're right there for us. And I appreciate that," Jack told him. "Take care of yourself as well."

"You too, Jack. It sounds like you've had a rough time wherever you were. I don't know about this searching for that fella of yours, but I hope you succeed. Everyone deserves to be happy," Owen told him. "Even psychotic egomaniac time travelers with delusions of grandeur."

Jack burst out into laughter and the two women turned to look at him where he was standing. "Don't ever change, Owen!"

"I won't," Owen replied smugly. That was how he wanted to leave it and Jack accepted his send off with a jaunty salute. He watched as Jack turned to scan the room. "He's down in the archives," Owen told him.

Jack turned back to look at him. "Thanks," he said. With a brief glance in the direction of his old office, he turned and headed through the archway to the archives below. He didn't have to go far, as Andy was only down the hallway feeding the Weevils. Jack stopped in the entryway and leaned against the wall.

Andy heard the scrape of his boots on the steps but finished what he was doing before turning to look at Jack. He had had some time to process what had happened, as well as a frank conversation with his Jack earlier.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "I should have been up front with you from the beginning. I wasn't, and for that I am truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Andy."

"I know," Andy said. "And to be honest, you did try in the beginning. I was the one who pushed for something more. I understand why you did what you did." He was ready to forgive Jack. He would always forgive him, no matter what happened.

Jack stepped down into the corridor so that he stood in front of Andy. "It's not your fault. You had no idea what the truth was. And I really didn't want you to be hurt in all this." He looked down at his feet for a moment while he tried to find a way to say what he felt like he needed to say. "And if the circumstances were different…" he trailed off, not knowing how to continue.

"If they were different," Andy said and Jack looked up at him. "And this Ianto wasn't around; do you think it would have worked between us?"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said with a smile. "And it will work between you and your Jack. You just need to give him time to change. And he will. He can't help but be changed by you, Andy." Jack stepped forward and cupped Andy's face with his hands. "You are an easy man to fall in love with."

Andy's eyes were shining with unshed tears at the emotion he felt at Jack's comment. He could see the sincerity in the other man's gaze along with his admiration and affection. Even in the few short weeks they had been together, he could see it in Jack's response. "Thanks," he said softly, his voice breaking.

"You helped me a lot, Andy," Jack told him, wanting to make him see how much he meant what he said. "You made me see that I can fall in love again. And that is a gift you gave me that I will always cherish. You gave me hope when I couldn't see that there was any. And you, Andy Davidson, are an amazing man. Thank you," he said. He leaned inwards and gave Andy a kiss.

Andy pressed against him and wrapped his arms around Jack, holding him close for as long as Jack would let him. They hugged one another for a long moment, saying with touch what they couldn't say in words to one another. When they finally separated, Andy could see that Jack was silently crying, but he was smiling as well.

"Thank you, Jack," Andy told him. "You've given me a lot of hope for the future." He reached up and wiped the tear track off of Jack's cheek.

"I'm glad I was able to do that," Jack said. He kept his arms around Andy's waist, enjoying the feeling of holding the other man. Andy stared into his eyes. Now that his Jack was back, he could see the differences more clearly. His Jack looked a lot younger, but less vulnerable. He knew now that it was a mask, a shield that he put up to protect himself. It was something that this Jack didn't feel the need to do.

"What's going to happen to your Ianto?" Andy asked. "I mean, he knows all about you and Torchwood. Do you think that is a problem?" Jack sighed.

"Yeah, I spoke to your Jack about it. I think the best thing would be to retcon him and give him some other memories. Jack's agreed to set him up with some accounts so he can do something with his life. He has so much potential. I hope he can find it. But it will have to be without me interfering," Jack told him.

"I can do it," Andy told him. He had to admit he was curious to meet this man who had captured this Jack's heart. "Meet up with him and go out for a drink. Slip it in while we're out, and then work to set the false memories. That is, if that's okay."

"You would do that?" Jack asked, taken off guard by the suggestion. Andy nodded. "After everything that happened?"

"You love him, even if he isn't the right man for you," Andy told him. "It's the least I could do to help." Jack gave him a lopsided smile at his comment.

"You are an amazing and generous man, Andrew Davidson. And I'm proud to have met you," Jack told him. He pulled him in for another hug and a kiss. "Thank you."

"Thank you, Jack," Andy told him. "For everything."


	20. Chapter 20

Later that same evening, Jack stood in the shadows of the roundabout as he watched Ianto Jones. The young man was looking a little broody and skittish when Andy pulled up and offered him a ride. After a short conversation, Ianto got in the car and Andy drove off. Jack knew he wasn't going too far, and so he followed on foot, taking care not to show himself to the other rent boys milling around the roundabout.

Taking a short cut down an alleyway, he came out onto a street and saw Andy's car pull over into a space. After a few moments, he watched the two men get out of the car and go into the pub. Jack slipped around the back and went in through the kitchen. He had already paid off the cook not to say anything, and the man barely glanced at him as he walked in and through the kitchen to the doorway. The back hall was dark and he was able to get to the pub proper without being seen. He looked about and saw that Andy and Ianto were seated at a table. Jack settled himself in the shadows of the back of the pub and watched. He grinned when he saw the way Ianto was playing Andy. He wondered if Andy was falling for it or not. He hoped not, since that would make things a bit messy.

Andy sat back in his seat, drinking a scotch. He was trying to come across as posh, and had dressed in a sports coat and shirt with jeans, trying to imitate one of those young businessmen that he always saw rushing about the Plass at all hours.

"What is it you do again?" Ianto asked him as he took a sip of his drink. He nearly choked on it, never having had anything other than beer before. He tried to mask his cough by ducking his head down to cover the fact. Andy pretended not to notice.

"Stock trading. You know, on the internet," Andy said as he waved his glass in the air. "Buy low, sell high, that sort of thing. Day trading is where it's at, after all." Ianto nodded as if he understood, but it looked clear to Jack that he didn't understand at all. "But enough about me, let's talk about you." Andy said. He leaned forward as he licked the rim of his glass suggestively. Jack tried not to laugh as he watched.

Ianto blinked at him, trying to figure out what it was he was trying to do. He decided not to question it. If the bloke had money and was willing to pay, he was fine with that. He grinned at the curly haired man opposite him. He had a bit of a boyish charm to him, and was cute in his own kind of way. He also came across as very nervous, like he had never picked up another man before. Ianto wondered what his story was. Maybe he was just coming out of the closet. From the way he downed that drink and called for another, it looked like he was going for the liquid courage. That was fine with Ianto. It meant that he wouldn't be too fussed about exactly what he did get. Sometimes with these new guys it was just a grope and a kiss in the back of the car. Sometimes it was a blowjob. Usually, neither was demanding, so Ianto figured it was going to be an easy couple of quid along with the free drink.

"Damn, that barman," Andy muttered, slurring his voice to make Ianto think he was more drunk than he was. "Drink up, I'll get us another round," he urged the other man. Ianto shrugged and tossed back the drink. He felt the burn right down his throat to his stomach and he blinked at the sensation. If this guy wanted to get pissed, it was all right with him.

"Go for it," Ianto said as he put his glass down on the table. Andy picked them up and brought them over to the bar, asking for another round. The barman shrugged and poured him two more glasses. Andy tossed some money at the man before picking up the glasses and weaving back over to where Ianto was seated. He had to pause and put the glasses down at another table and then patted his pockets as if trying to remember where his wallet was. He patted his front pocket and beamed happily, then picked up the glasses. Only Jack noticed him drop the tiny pill into one of the glasses.

Andy took his time staggering back, giving the retcon enough time to dissolve in the glass. He put it down in front of Ianto and sat back down in his seat again. "There! Service with a smile."

"Cheers," Ianto said. He took a sip of the new drink and grinned. He liked this stuff; it gave him a good buzz, much better than what he got from drinking a pint. The two men started making up toasts to things and were soon on their third drink when Ianto started to list sideways.

"What's wrong?" Andy asked his friend. Ianto shook his head feeling a bit fuzzy.

"I think I've had enough," Ianto said as he pushed the glass away. "And if you're going to want something else from me, we better get on with it or else one of us is going to pass out."

"Oh, right," Andy said. "Let's go then," he said as he tossed some large bills on the table. Ianto stared down at the crumpled bills for a moment before dazedly looking up at Andy. He didn't even remember him standing. "C'mon."

"Okies," Ianto said, feeling silly. He let Andy help him out and the two men staggered out of the pub, giggling at one another. Jack waited until they left before slipping out the back. He didn't head out to the street, but went down the alley in the opposite direction. Cutting across several streets he looked up and down. The street was clear. He crossed the street and entered a hotel. He didn't look at the desk clerk but just went into the lift and went upstairs to the fourth floor. He pulled a key out of his pocket and let himself in. The room was dark, so he closed the door behind him, turned on the light and waited. It didn't take very long before he heard a couple of low laughs and the fumbling of the key in the lock. He moved into the bathroom and closed over the door so he wouldn't be seen.

"I told you the key went in the other way," Ianto told Andy who giggled maniacally. Jack rolled his eyes as he leaned against the wall behind the door.

"I guess you know something about which slot it should go in, eh?" Andy said and Ianto laughed. Jack felt the door bump into him as one of the men staggered against it.

"You could say that," Ianto said. He was having trouble focusing. That drink had been stronger than he thought, because he was feeling very foggy. He stumbled again, this time banging into the mirror on the wall next to the wardrobe.

"Whoa there," Andy said as he helped Ianto over to the bed. "Getting a little eager there, aren't you?"

"Yup, that's me," Ianto said as he pulled Andy down with him. "What you want? I can do anything, just pay me the…." Jack listened intently, but Ianto never finished the sentence. The retcon had finally taken hold. Jack opened the door and peered out around the doorframe. Andy was just straightening up and he turned at the sound of the door squeaking open.

"Never thought that was going to kick in," Andy said as he leveraged himself off the bed and sat up. He looked down and patted Ianto's cheek. "He's out of it, at that suggestible stage. Whatever you want to do, you should do it now."

"Yeah, thanks Andy," Jack said as he removed his coat and sat down on the other side of the bed.

"Want me to leave?" Andy asked. He watched as Jack tenderly stroked the hair back from Ianto's forehead.

"No, that's okay," Jack said. "This isn't going to take long." He took something out of his pocket and placed it on Ianto's head. Pressing something on his vortex manipulator, the device started flashing. "This will replace his memories. I thought about creating a whole new identity for him as well, but he needs to find his own way. I can't create it for him. I can help him, though." Jack monitored the device as the flashing lights sped up before stopping abruptly.

"What's that do?" Andy asked, curious.

"It affects both the cerebrum and temporal lobes. One contains thoughts and consciousness, the other memories of sight and speech. What it is doing is blurring what's happened. The brain will fill in the blanks and it will be one of those kinds of things where you feel like you don't know what day it is, just that you've been doing the same sort of things for a while so the details are blurred. Of course it really won't delete anything that happened, but combined with the retcon, it can do some selective obscuring of the edges as it were. This is important because if he ever runs into your Jack, it's not going to trigger any memories that will bring it all back."

"Okay, that makes sense. And how do you explain about the money he's going to come into?" Andy asked, curious.

"Ianto's going to get picked up by Cardiff's finest for some minor transgression," Jack said with a grin. "Nothing that they can keep him on, but enough to run him through the system. And that's when something is going to come up flagged for his name. An uncle that was looking for him wanting to help him, but hadn't been able to find him. Uncle Albert unfortunately died, but left what he had to Ianto to make something of himself. It's not so much that it looked suspicious, but enough to get him off the streets. The will has some stipulations that the solicitor will want to enforce, such as using the money for an education, that sort of thing." He smiled down at the young man who was asleep and removed the device from his forehead. "It's enough to give him a chance to do something with his life without wondering where he's going to sleep or where his next meal is from."

"That should be enough," Andy told him. "From what you've said, he's certainly motivated to learn. This will give him the chance to do so." He looked down at the young man. "It's a good thing you're doing, Jack."

Jack smiled down at the man lying on the bed. "If it helps, yeah." He looked up when Andy reached over and placed a hand on his own, which was resting on Ianto's chest. "Thank you, Andy. You were great tonight." Andy preened a bit at the praise.

"You liked that, yeah?" He asked Jack. Jack grinned and nodded. "Good."

"Let's get him undressed and under the covers," Jack said. Andy helped him get Ianto situated. They made it look like he had been with someone and Jack left some money on the table along with two empty glasses to make it look like Ianto had partied with someone before falling asleep. It would help reinforce the filling in of the gaps when he woke up. Jack scribbled a note, thanking Ianto for a fun evening and that "they" would have to do it again sometime. He left it with the money so that Ianto would see it. When they were finished setting up the room, Jack picked up his coat before he paused and looked at the man in the bed. Ianto had curled up around the pillow.

Andy stood back and knew he was silently saying goodbye to the man who wouldn't even remember him. Jack stood there for the longest time without moving and Andy wondered what he was thinking. When he finally moved, it was towards the bed. He leaned down, stroked his fingers through Ianto's hair again and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Goodbye, Ianto. Be well. Make something of your life here and most of all, be happy," Jack whispered. Andy closed his eyes and willed himself not to cry as he heard Jack speak. He wondered if his Jack would ever feel that way about him, and whether he would do something like this one had done. He shook his head to clear those thoughts as Jack stood up and turned off the bedside lamp.

"Let's go," he said in a quiet voice, not looking in Andy's direction. Andy nodded and opened the door. Together the two men left the room, Andy shutting the light off as they closed the door behind them. They were silent as they walked down the hall to the lift and out of the hotel. Andy hesitated as Jack stopped and looked back the way they had come.

"I'll keep an eye on him for you," he promised. Jack turned back, surprised by his offer. "He'll be okay. I'll make sure of it."

"Thank you, Andy. You don't have to, though. I know how hard this has to be for you," Jack told him. They began walking down the street. Jack had his hands in his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched as he walked beside Andy.

"It's the least I can do," Andy informed him. "After all, you won't be here to watch over him, so someone should. Might as well be me."

Jack smiled and shook his head to clear the sad thoughts. They weren't too far from the Hub so Andy left the rental car where it was. It was obvious that Jack needed to walk it out. They were quiet as they made their way along the city streets towards the Bay.

"You're going to leave," Andy said. It wasn't a question. Jack nodded. "I wish…" he stopped. There was no possibility for what he wished.

"I can't stay. I need to either go back home, or keep on looking," Jack said, looking up and giving Andy a tired smile.

"Think you'll give up?" Andy asked him. He couldn't imagine what was going through Jack's mind after what had happened here. Jack sighed and shrugged.

"Sometimes I wonder whether that would be the right thing to do," Jack said as they turned the corner. It was late, and there were only a few people wandering about, now that the clubs were closed. They continued to walk along until they got to the Bay and Jack leaned on the railing. The night was clear and there was some light from the moon above. Andy was quiet as he waited for Jack to continue. The only other sound other than the scrape of his shoe against the edge of the railing as he put his foot on it was the water lapping up against the dock. "I've met so many men. All different versions of Ianto. Some, not even on this planet," Jack told him. "And each of them, somehow were not right. Maybe he was unique in the universe and that I only got that one shot. Maybe I'll never find him. When I think of what happened here, and how hurt he was when he found out what I was doing…" Jack trailed off and shook his head. Andy peered at him and could see he had his eyes closed. "I shouldn't be doing that."

"Maybe not," Andy said, feeling like he owed him a reply. "But maybe if something is worth having, it's worth the effort you have to make in finding it. Or him, as the case may be." Jack turned his head to look at him, but his face was in shadow, so Andy couldn't really see his expression.

"Maybe," Jack said. It gave him something to think about. He sighed and turned back to the Bay. "I've always loved it here. Even when I felt trapped here, this place always pulled me back. It's the people. The Welsh are an amazing people. They have a lot of strength. Like you," Jack told Andy. "Thank you for helping tonight. You were amazing."

"Yeah, I was, wasn't I?" Andy asked and it made Jack smile.

"See, that's what I mean," Jack said. "Did I also mention modest?" Andy laughed and was happy to see that Jack answered him with a broader smile. "Don't ever change, Andy."

"Don't plan on it. Despite all of the spooky do stuff," he amended. Jack put an arm around him and hugged his shoulders.

"Good. That's what I'm counting on."

"So," Andy said as Jack finally pulled back. "You're going now."

"Yeah, I am." Jack said with a nod. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the device which would take him onto the next dimension. Despite what had happened here, he still felt that the tarot girl had made him a promise, and he had to see it through for as long as he could. "I'm keeping you up."

"Not a problem," Andy said. He stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "Take care of yourself, Jack."

"Thanks," Jack said. "And you take care of yourself, and your Jack. He needs you, Andy. More than he'll ever admit to himself." Andy nodded. He knew that already. "Well, this is it, then."

Andy impulsively leaned forward and gave Jack a peck on the lips. "Here's a kiss for luck." Jack looked surprised for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"That's not a kiss. This," he said as he reached out and pulled Andy up against him, "is a kiss." He tilted his head and gave Andy a passionate kiss that made the younger man tremble. When Jack pulled back he held Andy for a moment until he was sure the ex-PC was steady. "Thanks, I needed that."

"Wow," Andy said. He stared at Jack for a moment. "Wow."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Jack said, keeping things light. "Be well, Andy. And thank you again."

"Thank you, Jack. Safe travels," Andy told him. Jack stepped back and gave him a jaunty wave. He took one last look around the Bay before turning back to Andy. Saluting, he lowered his hand onto the boxlike device and he pointed it away from where they were standing. A bright light shot out of the end of the tube fixed to the end and formed the doorway. Jack gave Andy one last wave, and walked into the light. The doorway closed with an audible pop. Andy could feel his ears ringing and he could taste the ozone in the air in the aftermath of the passageway closing. Licking his lips he turned and headed to the Hub. He knew that his Jack was there, waiting for him. And they had a reunion to celebrate…

_~FIN~_


End file.
